Derek B. Demented

The Devil's Waves

Sometimes those waves hit you- they hit me a bit last night and they hit me again this morning. Those waves of frustration and anger- why are things the way they are?

The hard part for me is I'm a very compassionate and expressive person. When my first love and I broke up long ago, it was really hard on her (and me). I remember seeing flowers in the supermarket and geting tremendously sad because I always loved to buy her flowers... this was the first girl in 7 years that I'd ever bought flowers for again. It's symbolic to me, but it's something I love to do. And now I see flowers in the supermarket again and it makes me sad- sad that I have no one to express compassion to.

So I've taken to this mindset that I would rather cherish love in my heart then simply bury it away and forget about it and "move on." I realize that comes off as still being caught up on someone but I honestly dont' think that's it. In thinking about this, I wrote this last night:

"It's been hard fighting all these feelings- to keep this love positive- to not poison it with pain and sadness and anger. Sometimes I wonder why I want to keep this love good and then I remember why (not that I ever forgot): Love is not something you lose- you could never possess it to lose it. If you desire to own love then it is not love- true love has no conditions. This is something I must prove to myself- something I must demonstrate as true."

If my soul is to be true to itself, then Love shall be felt regardless of the outcome. I wouldn't stop loving someone if they died and I certainly shouldn't stop loving them even if they choose to trade their heros for ghosts. I turned on love once in my life and it left me dead and alone and sad and utterly incapable of creating. That is a lesson I learned and it is a mistake I shall not repeat. 

I wrote on...

"I fear the inevitable tests for this- it frightens me to worry of the hurt- the tears- seeing the one you love in love with another. It is maybe the only thing that truly scares me. But I walk towards that fear with open arms, for I may have fear but I shall not fear it- I shall embrace the pain as I embrace the pleasure- if I'm unwilling to feel real pain then I can never know real happiness- for without contrast there is no definition. And if I am to be defined, let it be by the boundaries of love."

It's hard to put it any other way but it just feels right in my soul to pursue this path. I don't "want" her to be with me. I'd love to be with her but not in the way we were and if that means we'll never be together then I've accepted that. I'm not out to change things or to get her back. And likewise, I'm not out to hate her or to forget about her. Things are the way they are and they'll work out however they do and I know if I'm true to myself I'll be happy. That's the path I've chosen and for the first time in a long time, I'm at peace with my self.

Course, sometimes the devil tries to tempt you with other thoughts but that's just the way life works. I can take it- that devil don't got shit on me. 

 

A Dream...

This morning between the snooze I had a dream about an earthquake.

I dreamt that I was at a bar in a restaurant and an earthquake was about to happen. There was a small boy standing by the bar next to me. He was only 7 or 8 and was just standing there by himself. As the quake began to happen, I crouched to the ground and held the boy in my arms and told him we were going to go for a ride and that everything was okay.

As the ground began to shake violently, I remember hugging the child and saying "This is kinda fun isn't it?"

I suppose that's kinda how I feel about life right now.... not sure if that little boy is me- i like to think so.

I awoke with a smile. 

Love is beautiful, and so are you

Love is like he sun

It hurts to stare at

It comes and goes as it pleases

It will burn you if you're not careful!

But no matter how many times it leaves you, it will always return

Because it is always with you, whether you can see it or not

Whether you can feel it or not,

Whether you believe it or not

When you're down

Lonely

Hurt

Sad

Depressed

Torn up

Fighting yourself

Trapped in your head

Crying out to god "Why? Why?!"

And you feel like there's no sense in this world...

Love is always there

Because life is beautiful, and so are you

Look inside yourself and see your sun

It shines for you

You are beautiful

And I love you

 

A Higher Self

One Week

Last night, I slept in all my clothes, including my jacket. I zipped up my jacket as tight as it would go- it was the closest thing to a hug I could find...

Something Beautiful

As I sat crying the other night, i opened my eyes to see this on the ground directly where my tears had fallen...

 

It was beautiful

I Can Feel You

I can feel your sadness.

It filled me with dread last tuesday- hours before you left me- inexplicable yet overwhelming sadness washed over me that day and I'd yet had no reason to be upset. I felt in my bones that something was horribly wrong.

I left work early that day because I couldn't think straight, and when I saw you and you didn't even look at me I knew without asking. 

You didn't talk so I left. When I got home I read your note "every little thing is gonna be alright." I reread your facebook messages and listened to that song you sent me, clinging to the lyrics which so haunt me now:

"Save me, I'm lost. Oh lord I've been waiting for you. I'll pay any cost, save me from being confused."

I cried because I wanted to save you- wanted to dissolve your confusion. I'd hoped you'd see your own torture reflected in my aged scars. I fought to manifest some hope. I fought for us.

But you did the right thing. When you emerge from this self discovery, my heart will always be here. I will always feel you- when you cry, I know and I'll be here, telling you, in tears of my own, that I love you...

Whether you can hear me or not, you are beautiful. There are flowers in your heart as in mine. I promise you- I can feel those too. 

Rip Tide

Caught in a rip tide of emotion, desperately trying to reach the shore

Being carried out to sea again and ever coming back for more

But you can't escape a rip tide, you've got to let it carry you away

Embrace the path that lies before you and trust you'll touch the shore one day

Selfless

Love is really a selfish act- the love we feel. All too often, we cling to it. We do not think about the other person, we think about what we want.

I don't want to do that

A Hint of Insanity

Sometimes my brain can get away from me, spinning out of control in a thought storm that takes me so quickly from one notion to the rest that I feel completely incapacitated and at the whim of an unstoppable force. 

A friend once told me "that's why I take medication." 

Perhaps this is what ADD feels like.

Perhaps those 2nd grade school administrators were right. 

Fortune

I never eat the extra fortune cookies when I get Chinese food on my own

I always imagine they're intended for someone else- I only deserve one really

For better or worse, any more would just be greedy

I'll save them for some other day

Some day when I might not have any fortune and need a pick me up

Someone else could use them

....I have a drawer of these wasted fortune cookies.

 

But all that ends today

Because loving yourself means making use of every bit of furtune you're given

It doesn't matter what you deserve, who you are, or how it got there

What matters is that you don't just drop your umbrella and tuck good fortunate away

You can't just wait for a rainer day and hope that things will go your way

 

Cause damnit, when fortune comes you're way, you use it to make yourself happy

To make others happy

and to take that fortune and pay it forward

Pay it forward as far as your can

 

Loving yourself means eating all your fortune cookies:

SEIZE FROM EVERY MOMENT IT'S UNIQUENESS

YOU HAVE A REPUTATION FOR BEING STRAIGHT, FORWARD, AND HONEST

YOU MAY ATTEND A PARTY WHERE STRANGE CUSTOMS PREVAIL

THE PROJECT YOU HAVE IN MIND WILL SOON GAIN MOMENTUM

YOU HAVE THE MAKINGS OF A LEADER, NOT A FOLLWER

The Unforgiving Sea

The ocean beckons...

Like the taunting of a forbidden lover

'Come to me,

Forget your troubles and give in to the abyss'

Every man reaches a point in their days when they must purge themselves of the world they have created

And step into the world of God's creation 

To be reminded of what it means to feel the unknown breathe upon his neck

The ocean is a lover, immaculate and mysterious

The only kind-

Names are eclipsed by passion 

And the cold hearted reality of life and death- and its electricity for which there is no other source- grips your soul with out mercy

A select few seek such endeavors;

They know they are cursed to covet what is not theirs

And to seek out the mystery of the unforgiving sea

Rachel Kann- "Come"

The other day, I was fortunate enough to catch a poetry reading at the Rumor Mill- a quint little coffee shop just a block away from the first apartment I had in California. While there, I was struck dumbfounded by a poem that was read to us by Rachel Kann. I wrote her and asked if there was any way I could find that poem- if it was written down or if I could buy it. She gracefully sent it to me for free with the greeting "good karma." 

I couldn't not share this- it is about those times when you feel like everything that happens is bad, when you feel run over and defeated, when you're sitting there just crying out "when is the good shit gonna come??!" This poem is about that good shit- the good shit that is coming to you:

COME

By Rachel Kann

i will come like a flashback, finally slack and unraveling,

like in-taken breath, like your best guess, like warm air caresses cold flesh,

i am resting intentionally in the parentheses of your future-tense memory.

 

i will come like karma, like déjà vu;

the dance you’ve always known the steps to.

i am specifically meant to directly address you, and my best fantasy is your smile.

 

i’ll come

from around the corner of your mind,

out of the blue, out of leftfield,

the snatched tatter of a dream that seemed real; worth remembering,

the other side of the membrane separating everything from everything.

 

i am the whisper from the ghost in the machine.

i am the promise from a fickle god you thought forgot you.

i am the feast on the laden table, ready, legs buckling.

 

i am the what if,

the obsolete pattern, shattered; un-spiraled and unspooling.

i am on the one hand,

and i am the other answer, undone.

i am gathering your crackled crumbs

of heart-dust and wetting them with my own blood.

 

i am the fixed zippers in your malfunctioning wrists.

i am buttoning the lip of your suicide note with kisses.

i am the manifestation of never-thought-existed.

the message hidden in the backwards vinyl of your death wish.

 

i am the payoff for 11,011 days of alienation.

i am the holding, i am the release, i am what will wrap around you

and i am brave enough to make yes and my arrival is predestined

no matter how as-yet imperceptible.

i am breathless with the building portent,

 

and i am terrified, confounded, and blinded.

despite this, i will come.

see the tumbling puzzle pieces falling at my feet,

forming synergetic street?

i am fate’s servant; following, faithful, fervent.

i am for you. all your glass-bottled messages come rolling up my shore,

all your wishes drift inexplicably to my star.

 

this is me versus monolith,

unable to avoid what is blatant.

i can’t not read the smoke signals billowing from your burning desire,

can’t not translate the morse encoded in your heartbeat,

can’t not finger the frail brail in your subtle-bodied veins,

and wait.

 

i will come like bass thumping up 111th street, like thunder rumbling from 111 paces,

like anticipation.

 

i will come like pins and needles, a stomachful of butterflies, paroxysmal thighs,

stifled cries, eyes looking up and inside lids.

 

i will come like vehement agonizing beauty. 

i will come like pulse. throb. wonderment.

i will come at the 11th second, when you least expect it.

i will come when pathetic misdirection

causes you to, (at long last,) abandon self-fulfilling prophecies,

and lose your taste for mapmaking; urges you to throw down

the accordioned paper web of blue and red,

 

and then,

when you are

empty-handed,

eye-opened,

readied,

 

i will arrive.

 

make no mistake.

 

like a chorus of a thousand

hallelujahs,

i will come.

O K

People keep asking me if "I'm Okay?"

I suppose I don't really know.

Are you okay?

Where is the love?

Something "is" by virtue of what it isn't

Everything that "is" is only understood by what it "is not"- we distinguish identities by establishing boundaries. This is "this," that is "that;" this we know because "this" is not "that." So in this way, difference becomes the major signifier of existence. 

This is most sensibly notable with vision. When we are born, we are unable to see with clarity- the world is a cloud of color. We learn to perceive forms naturally as our mind evolves, and thus we begin to understand the self as separate from the world. In this way, we innately ignore the notion of universal connectedness because of our bias of understanding the world through sensory perception. 

However, we also classify like things together as a conscious act. Just as our unconscious is establishing formal separation, our intellect establishes a connection between things that are similar. And in turn, these groupings are likewise defined by what they are not. This group is unlike that group.

THERE IS NO IDENTITY without difference. Difference isolates a thing, allowing it's characteristics to shape it. Without difference, we can never establish identity.

Yet, IDENTITY is a human construct, is it not?

Therefore, we truly do posses the power to define our own universe.

Quantum physics says a particle does not take form until it is observed, and that the very act of observation also alters the state of any particle. Our very act of observation and thus identification alters the very identity of any thing we choose to identity. 

By definition then, there are two realities:

• comprehensible and identified reality
• unobserved and unidentified reality

The philosopher Immanuel Kant was able to point out that the term "reality" is somewhat of a double entendre. We think it of reality as the "underlying truth" and yet reality can only be what is real- it must be comprehensible and understandable. Otherwise, of what use would reality be to us?

And yet, if we look at the two realities I've established, what I've done is established a boundary- two realities only exist because I've have drawn a distinction between the two. I've defined one reality by establishing that it is NOT the other. 

Whether I be contemplating observable reality or incomprehensible reality, aren't these labels solely for my own benefit- aren't they still one in the same? Surly they do not change by virtue of my label. And yet they must change by virtue of my observation- as the laws of physics will point out.

How do we break down this impasse? By drastically altering our perception? Throughout history, scientific theory has driven the paradigm evolution. The heliocentric model, the discovery of atoms, the understanding of space-time- all of these have shattered the perceptions of the past, leaving mythology unable to evolve at the same rate as man's scientific endeavors. And what are the limits of man's perception? How far can we push the boundaries of understanding? Are there limits?

We try to control other people's reality by altering our appearance, changing the things we say and how we say them. We try to manipulate to our advantage people's perception and to hide who and what we really are (which as previously noted is solely subjective to what we are not). We do this to combat anxiety, or the fear of the negative. Therefore, we change ourselves when we are observed. We have multiple identities just as there are two realities. 

How can we keep track and how do we know if our innate perception is accurate? Aren't we constantly learning new things about ourselves as we live our lives?

Since the down of man, we have always felt the presence of a god- a higher power just out of our reach. Might god really be this alternate reality- the unobserved, incomprehensible self? Or is he something we made up to combat the anxiety of the unknown? And really, what is the difference?