But I Digress...

What a trip down bad memory lane this is... I have decided, as a public service, to post some of the teenage, angsty, depressed-by-the-futility-of-existence things I wrote. I have a lot of opinions as to the causes of teenage depressions and other mental disorders affecting the suburban world. I think most of it, not all of course, but the vast majority is due to boredom. At least that was my case (mostly). Anyway, I used to think it profound to write things like this, not so much now, but I still look back fondly at the two relationships, the two potentially tragic, horrific relationships, I was spared being a part of. It kind of reminds me of Garth Brooks' song where he thanks God for unanswered prayers, but in a more suburban and less country way. Anyway, at the time of course, I was full of anger and vitriol and indignation at the injustice of the world, existence, and the God I denied and disparaged, but looking back on it, I cannot imagine a more depressed or tragic existence than if those relationships had worked out the way I wanted at the time. One last note, pay special attention to my oh-so-creative indenting. I am oh-so-picky about making sure these are printed as I intended them to appear. Hopefully, next week, I can return to a more productive discourse on how bad things are with our government.

Divine Disappointment

The light hits me from the right,
    As if God were igniting a new sun.
The conversation hits me from the left
    like a mountain in the distance, crumbling.
But where is my mind?
    it is lost in the way she throws back her hair,
    it is lost in the way she rolls her eyes,
        like the changing tide on a desolate beach.
    it is lost in what some call love,
        some call infatuation,
        some call lust,
    but I...
call it a hopeless desire,
    that can never be fulfilled,
        like the obsessed scholar,
            reading...
                 everything.
    my wanton desire will
        follow me,
            to the grave.
and is it my fault?
    or the fault of some demon, tormenting
        me?
This I cannot know...
    and should not know,
        for then,
            my life would be devoid of the ultimate goal,
    and I
would cease to exist.

April 29, 1994



Ode To Shoney's

The coffee flavored small talk rumbles on
    as the clouds sprint overhead.
The bus boy has dropped another bucket
    and the working man leaves... to do
    just that.
In threesomes or ones we sit,
    the need to flaunt our loneliness prevails.
The waitress jokes with some customers
    as she prostitutes her friendliness, because...
    there is nothing else to do.
Muzak hovers lightly in the background
    as occasional laughs are heard,
    only from a distance.
The distance is greater than at first glance,
    we might be on opposite sides of the same ocean,
    or, on the same side of different oceans,
    it is hard to tell.
Cigarettes smolder in used ashtrays
    as the white table becomes a desert
    that engulfs my being.
The jungle that is the carpet hides me
    from those things that I fear,
    the things that haunt my mind.
Should I make my way from the barren desert
    and enter the dark jungle to relieve myself of
    the goods which I have consumed,
    or, should I wait until my nemesis,
        time,
    beckons me from my suburban hideaway?
Time will prevail as it always does,
    all else would cease to exist without this drunken
    step-father,
    and time, which is the fuel for all existence,
    will dictate my every action.

April 10, 1993