I wish you a week full of joy, inspiration and creativity. Get your mind to a happy place, the rest will come naturally.
:)
When I was nine years old, I moved away from the fresh country air, to a bigger, combusted, more polluted city. For five years my peers led me to believe I was nothing. Like a hammer chipping away at my very essence, every vindictive remark, every stick or stone thrown my way, every lunch I spent alone in the library, pushed me deeper and deeper into the ground. I was eleven years old the first time I held a knife against my chest, slowly digging it deeper into my flesh, believing I had no reason to keep on struggling through this thing called life. By some stroke of luck, fate, whatever it was my guardian angel threw my way that afternoon, my sister came home from school earlier than expected. I heard her key in the door, placed that tempting silver back in it’s rightful place, and hid away in my bedroom the rest of the afternoon. Until now, I have not spoken of that day. I remember it with crystal clear clarity; it was the day I promised myself I wouldn’t let my life waste away at the expense of others. During my primary school days, all I had was pad and pen. The other kids would try and humiliate me on a daily basis, sometimes one of the girls would steal my writing and run off with it, mocking me. It didn’t stop me from expressing myself in words. It became a natural way for me to deal with any kind of overwhelming emotion. To this day, I let that trusty pen do the talking - the one thats never let me down, even if the world has.
I wish for no person to feel the way I once did. Alone, in the dark with no hope or faith or love. Every ounce of happiness, fulfillment, inspiration, stolen away, for whatever reason. If I can give that back to someone, remind them how it feels to be alive - show someone the stars hiding behind the clouds, on a dark, stormy night, my soul will rest well tonight.
I have a handful of close friends, who like me, express themselves through writing. I follow their blogs, to understand their pain, and to know when to sweep them back to their feet, and remind them who they really are.
We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
and since that first breath… We’ll need grace that we’ve never given
I’ve been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
and it’s not only when these eyes are closed
these lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach,
but they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
and my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north,
stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
but it won’t won’t, at least I don’t believe it will…
so I’ve built a wooden heart inside this iron ship,
to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts.
don’t let these waves wash away your hopes
this war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors
pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors
but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember
I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
we all have the same holes in our hearts…
everything falls apart at the exact same time
that it all comes together perfectly for the next step
but my fear is this prison… that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden
and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
but they’re heavy and I’m awkward…always running out of fight
so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea
so come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember
My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea
if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
all these machines will rust I promise, but we’ll still be electric
shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
our bones grown together inside
our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided
our spines grown stronger in time
because are church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
so come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember
Of course not. What fun would it be if we knew the answers to everything? Half the fun in life is making mistakes, learning lessons and collecting memories of all sorts along the way. If you truly are worried, ask someone who knows. It shows your interest in your art and eagerness to perfect.
Write a bucket list, print it out, and stick it somewhere you see it on a daily basis. Even if you don’t instantaneously gain purpose or drive, your subconscious will start to picture the little things you can do that will bring you joy. Make someone else smile, it’s good karma. Start small, grow from there. I hope you find what you’re looking for and have a lively journey along the way.
I’ve nearly finished reading “Scar Tissue”, by Anthony Kiedis, and from it I have learned the struggle of his magic. I guess it’s like they say, an artists beauty always comes from a tortured soul… which makes me think of a close friend of mine. Her art would astound you, absorb you, awake your soul.
She, is true inspiration.
If you somehow need me,
you will find me in the backyard
beneath the drooping willow tree
my knees cheek to cheek with the earth
planting trees to make up for
the amount of paper I’ve wasted
and life I’ve killed
writing about you
and your blue eyes
my eyes watering it;
my lips whispering strangled words, giving it life
and when it grows, I’ll still have a part of you
but, this time, my heart will be strong;
I’ll be fine
Once you’ve seen a solution to the disease that’s tearing you apart, relapsing is never fun. You know there’s an alternative to the way you’re living and that you’re going against something you’ve been given for free by the universe, this key to the kingdom. Drug addiction is a progressive disease, so every time you go out, it gets a little uglier than it was before; it’s not like you go back to the early days of using, when there was less of a price to pay. It isn’t fun anymore, but it’s still desperately exciting. Once you put that first drug or drink in your body, you don’t have to worry about the girlfriend or the career or the family or the bills. All those mundane aspects of life disappear. Now you have one job, and that’s to keep chucking the coal in the engine, because you don’t want this train to stop. If it stops, then you’re going to have to feel all that other shit.
That chase is always exciting. There are cops and bad guys and freaks and hookers. You’re diving into a big insidious video game, but again, you’re being tricked into thinking that you’re doing something cool, since the price is always bigger than the payoff. You immediately give up your love and your light and your beauty, and you become a dark black hole in the universe, sucking up bad energy and not walking around putting a smile on someone’s face or helping someone out or teaching someone something that’s going to help his or her life. I want to describe both side of how I felt, but it’s important to know that in the end of all the romantic glorification of dope fiendery amounts to nothing but a hold of shit. It has to appear enticing, because that’s why God or the universe, creative intelligence or whatever you want to call it, put that energy here. It’s a learning tool, and you can either kill yourself with it or you can turn yourself into a free person with it. I don’t think drug addiction is inherently useless, but it’s a rough row to hoe.
Anthony Kiedis
