1. |
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Look --
I'm not afraid of growing old. I'm just afraid that one day the world won't be the same when I wake up as I remembered it when I went to sleep. And I'm not so scared my friends will leave, but I'm terrified that one day we'll found out that we ended up turning into the same rotten bastards we swore to each other we wouldn't be.
As we sat by the lake staring into the sun, we all knew, though we said nothing, that the day soon would come when the lights in our hearts would go out one by one -- but still, we all just told ourselves, "Hey man... at least, for now, we're young."
And the thing is --
We are still young, but the days don't feel so endless. Still got no futures, but at least back then, we refused to accept it. The seasons come and go, just like they always have and will. Like it or not, life goes on, long after the thrill is gone. And now you just drop your gaze and tell yourself you're okay although you dream no more dreams and you've gotten used to being swept away.
And in the rooms the people come and go. And from my room it seems they know something I don't, but everywhere I go I meet people dreaming -- dreaming of things they don't seem to believe in.
The last we spoke was the summer after freshman year. We went back to the lake where we caught up, and had a few beers. No one said it out loud, of course, but we all knew right then and there that the future had already come for us and it was exactly as we had feared.
But you know what --
We are still young, but the days don't feel so endless. Still got no futures, but at least back then, we refused to accept it. The seasons come and go, just like they always have and will. Like it or not, life goes on, long after the thrill is...
I still think of you when the leaves start to change. I still think of you when the nights start getting cold. I still think of you when the days start getting longer, and I hope I'll still think of you when we get old.
And one day, we will die, and our ashes will fly from an aeroplane over the sea. But for now we are young, so let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing -- every beautiful thing that we can see.
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2. |
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The most beautiful part of living was the part where I wasn't, but the second most beautiful part was the night I met you. They said that love would be one of those things you either knew, or you didn't... but if so, I don't know what the hell to call what I felt for you.
The moment I met you I saw in you a special kind of pity... the kind you develop when you're too used to your own company. At the time I thought, "This must be love at first sight, just like in movies," but the truth's that I only saw what I wanted to see.
The most beautiful part of loving was knowing I couldn't -- I couldn't come up with the words to say what I felt. But the moment I finally found those words in myself, I found out that you'd already heard all of those dumb words from somebody else.
Now, I don't know much about love and I am no poet. When I was young I never found out a way to appropriately express myself. And even now, while my friends all tell me to just see a therapist... I'm just too stubborn and selfish and prideful and full of myself.
I wish I could tell you that these days it don't hurt so bad, but who am I kidding? Everyone knows it's a fact that I threw away my heart back in 2017, and ever since I've shut myself out in a dream.
Now the best parts of living are the days when I don't find myself wondering about all the dim futures I threw away because I was scared to reach out to you, and to tell you the truth: that I wanted you, that I wanted you, that I wanted to reach out and --
Ah, who am I kidding?
I just wanted you as an excuse to obliterate myself.
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3. |
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There is no future, no future for me. At least that's what my father used to always tell me when I was sixteen, and could still afford to dream of a future better than the present couldn't be.
When I was growing up people always used to tell me, "You've got so much promise, man, I think you're gonna be someone one day." What a shame no one ever could just tell me straight who it was exactly I was supposed to be. See, I never even wanted to be an artist; in fact, most of these days, I think art is pointless bullshit. I just had so many terrible thoughts in my head that needed to be let out but when I tried to speak, no one ever took me seriously.
And so I've shut myself out in a borrowed shell. People always used to tell me that I needed to get help, to grow up, to move out, to develop a sense of personal responsibility -- but what's the point though when the whole world's going straight to hell?
See, when people talk about the future, what they're really talking about is the past, because the past is the only thing that you've got left when the future always slips by too fast. So now I just waste away the flickering present in a cell built out of dim memories. I no longer harbour any dreams or hopes or ambitions for a future that has a place for me.
But I still I wish I could be somebody else... I just want to be anybody else. Someone prettier, and wealthier, who's read more books than me, who's still capable of basic empathy. I just want to be someone else... Doesn't matter, could be anyone else. I just don't want to be myself, because most days I can't stand myself. I just want to be someone else, but the truth's that I hate everyone else. I just don't want to be myself; but the thing is, most days, I can't even be myself.
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4. |
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"Just work hard and you'll make it," they told me, but when I put in the work, they called it a talent, and all of my talents were passed off as genetic advantage. I was born in the shadow of a second-place medal in the race of all races with nowhere to go but to fall and to fall and to fall and to --
My mediocrity is somebody else's apex, and all that I've learned how to do is just a bunch of dumb fucking parlour tricks to impress some dumb fucking girl who's already looking straight through me towards a better tomorrow a little bit taller, a little bit prettier, a little bit more assertive than guys like me.
See, guys like me are not -- cannot -- be the me that you want me to be. And honestly --
I'm fucking sick of softness. I'm fucking sick of kindness. I'm fucking sick of this tender heart. I'm fucking sick of the brave and the wholesome and good. So let it grow cold and cruel and twisted, if only to spite, to spite, to spite our parents' struggles, our people's struggles, and fucking diasporas, and colonial dramas, and imperial shame, and language games, and italicised frames, and traditional names that we've only learned now to bear for ourselves for credibility's sake.
And I just want out. And I just want out. And I just want out. And I just want out. And I just want a --
Well, I want a girl with a heart like a diamond and I want a chainsaw with a diamond-toothed chain and I want a box of sharp nails and a timer and a length of PVC piping and a kilo of Semtex-H.
Our fathers let us down. Our mothers let us down. Our fathers let us down. Our mothers let us down. We let each other down. We let each other down. We let each other down. I'm gonna let you down. So don't let me down
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5. |
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I know you're not the one for me, I knew this when we met, but even knowing that couldn't prevent this sad sickness from lodging in my chest and slowly clouding up my brain like a parataxic sepsis spreading out into my veins. When I accidentally catch your eye, I feel myself grow stiff: this palpitation in my gut, some somatic reflex. And don't even get me started on how I feel when you flip your hair -- all the pain in me transforms into exhilarating despair.
I used to talk to God, but God never talked to me. I used to pray to God for a sign of sympathy, but God doesn't laugh at my jokes, and God doesn't seem to care, but you do. Oh, you do. You do.
The saddest part's I know that you are no more real than God. (Or at least the you I know, which we both know's just a façade.) But when you asked me just the other day what I think I really want in life, it felt just like a reckoning, and it hurt just like a knife.
I wish that I had been born prettier, I wish I'd learned to be more kind. I wish there were more happy thoughts that lived inside my mind. I wish that you were younger and that maybe we had met somewhere in some timeline that I'm sure doesn't exist. And I wish I had a wider range of pretty metaphors. I wish my voice could be the kind that leaves jaws on the floor. Maybe then I'd trust you with this sprain inside my heart; but my voice is thin, and my words are plain, and I'm as shallow as my dumb, fucking, stupid, pretentious art.
And all the pretty horses, and all the pretty girls couldn't conjure up a flicker next to what you make me feel. Because when all the pretty girls go home, and I'm left out in the night, it's not them I see when I close my eyes, but it's you, it's you, oh, it's you, it's only you.
Guess I'll just have to learn to grow content with watching from afar, just patiently awaiting for the day we grow apart when I'll no longer need you, or my bank account runs dry, or I'll wear your patience thin with all my dreams of homicide. But until that fated day has come, I swear to you I'll try my best to just be honest with the things I usually hide. But I think, of all the hopeless, stupid dreams inside of me, this one, I'll keep it for myself, to bury among the reeds.
I used to talk to mountains, but mountains are too old. I used to talk to oceans, but the ocean's dark and cold, and the skies are bright and empty, and the forests dumb and mute, but not you. Not you, not you, not you.
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6. |
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There are some days when I don't feel so empty. Those are the days when everything just feels bad. I just sit there at the window and stare at the sky 'til I've torn myself to shreds on dreams of homicide and then I collapse into a pitch black cloud of darkness. Inside my chest, the evil thoughts start to rise: I imagine a pretty girl smiling at me. I imagine her head up on a pike.
No one writes eulogies for guys like us. No one will think of all the things we did. No one will remember how bright we shined, because no one even noticed when we lived.
And I've lived my whole life like I'm walking alone, even though I've always had good company. What I lack is the feeling that I have some meaning and violence feels like it's the only feeling left to me. Man, I'm sick of hoping someone else will love me when I can't even start to want to love myself; and I'm sick of all the things that I can't feel, and I'm even more sick of all the things I do.
See, no one writes eulogies for guys like us. Ah, fuck, I'm sick of waiting for someone else, and I'm sick of being told to learn to love myself. I think it's time I finally learned to fuck myself...
Fuck money, fuck bitches, fuck diamonds and gilded chains: All I want in life's the kind of perfection that's free of pain. See, the ending of all wanting is all that I have been wanting, but the source of all that wanting's the clarity of all that's lacking. I want a Glock, an excuse to pop off, the illusion of a just delusion: a rational explanation that'll massage the imagination of this impatient nation. If you think that I'm a demon, call up the inquisition and inquire this then: What the fuck do I even still believe in?
I just want the violence in my heart to subside, or at the very least, abide by the empty morality I use to hide my insanity behind a mask of propriety, some kind of victim mentality. See, in a world that's governed by wolves, I'm a parasite, a cannibal, damned to picking/digging/sifting through the carcasses of animals I was too weak to kill on my own. I'm just looking for an explanation for the state of my alienation -- or more honestly, some company to stave off my own annihilation.
No -- what I really want is an excuse: an alibi for the impotent rage, a waiver for my moral failure. God don't love me, you don't love me (at least that's what it sounds like to me), but I don't hear voices, and I don't hear God. Hell, most of these days, I hear nothing at all.
But some days I even start to feel like I'm getting better... those are the days, I feel I could still find something more. And when my doctor asks me to describe the things I really want in life, I start to feel like things could still turn out alright... But the problem with therapy is that it costs as much as a Glock and (about) a hundred rounds of lead. And, the problem with living is that it costs too much: even insurance thinks I'm worth more when I'm dead.
Ah, no one writes eulogies for guys like us, and no one's gonna sing us a song. No angels are waiting for us where we're going and no god gives a shit enough to forgive all our petty wrongs.
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7. |
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I drove a nail right through my wrist. I pushed my thumb into my eye. I drove a stake into my heart. I sold myself out for my art. I took a bet against my life. I dug myself into the dirt. I pinned my hurt up on a cross. I sealed myself up in a room I found out soon was just a tomb, and I'm starting to think I might be fucked. I watched my health start to decline. I watched my market value rot. I watched my friends start to move on to better places than we're from, to better places where I'm not.
And I know that this won't last forever, but it's starting to feel like forever... Why do the days always seem to pass so slow in the moments that you try to tell yourself it's getting better?
I feel my end is drawing near. I think I'm starting to decay. I hear the knocking of a ghost: some days I swear it's just my own (not like it matters either way). I think I've been here a thousand years... guess I could wait a thousand more. Since then I've abandoned the delusion of miraculous salvation. There's no coming through that door. I think I'm running out of words. I think I'm running out of time. I think I'm running out of tricks to play and air to breathe to convince myself I'm still alive.
But the hardest part of forever is that forever's just a little bit longer -- a bit longer than you think, and longer than your memory, and definitely longer than your hope that one day things can still get better.
Because now I know. Now I know. Now I know...
Dead men do not rise into the sky; they do not push back stones on their own. My father, my father, why have you forsaken me...? ...all just a lie, just a lie, just a --
Dead men do not rise into the sky. They do not push back stones on their own. My father, my father, why have you abandoned me? All just a lie, just a lie, just a lie. Just a lie, a lie, a lie, a lie, a lie...
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8. |
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Some days I find myself still dreaming about the future, although I know my dreams won't ever come to pass. I try to picture what we might look like together, and for a moment, I swear things don't seem so bad... Maybe we'd have a house up on the coast of England and in the winters we could drift down to Peru. But any place would do that's no longer Manhattan -- it wouldn't matter, just so long as you're there too.
Don't call me. I'm leaving town. I regret to inform you that I'll no longer be around. Don't leave me. I'm so fucked now. I'm missing you already. I'm gonna burn this whole thing down.
Some days I find myself just hoping for an answer, although I probably should just be content with this... These lingering moments of improbable elation: why don't these kinds of moments ever seem to last? Maybe I should learn to diversify my interests instead of always taking bets against my heart, and if I could just learn how to sort my eggs in baskets, maybe I'd have less need for all these stupid songs.
Don't find me: I won't be found. Where I'm going, there won't be no answers, no words and no reasons, no lights and no sounds. Don't hurt me. Don't let me down. Don't waste me in the oceans. Don't leave me in the ground.
Don't call me. I'm leaving town. I regret to inform you that I'll no longer be around. Don't leave me. I'm so fucked now. I'm missing you already. I'm gonna burn this whole thing down.
Don't find me: I won't be found. Where I'm going, there won't be no answers, no words and no reasons, no lights and no sounds. Don't hurt me. Don't let me down. Don't waste me in the suburbs. Don't you leave me in the ground.
Don't call me. I'm leaving town. I regret to inform you that I'll no longer be around. Don't leave me. I'm so fucked now. I'm missing you already. I'm gonna burn this whole thing...
Some days, I find myself still dreaming about the future, although I know my dreams won't ever come to pass...
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9. |
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Woke up this morning. Wasn't in prison: turns out the dream I had of shooting up the mall was just a dream and nothing more. Oh, well... that's too bad.
Woke up this morning. Guess I still ain't dead: they didn't find me scattered in a dozen pieces at the bottom of an overflowing drainage ditch. Ah, shit... that's too bad.
But if you think that I am troubled or sadistic or just mean -- please don't get the wrong idea, I've just had an awful week, and violence was the only language I learned how to speak. I'm just sorry, man, that I turned out this way...
Woke up this morning. Guess I didn't leave town after all: I woke up in the same old room. which I had feared would be my tomb, with all my dreams of something more just scattered 'cross the floor oh God oh God get me out of here...
So I fell asleep again. I dreamed of better things: I tried to dream of better things like peace, and, grace, and faith, and hell, maybe even love... Ah, my mistake.
Woke up this afternoon to a familiar silence: the din of all my memories, thoughts and feelings and delusions catching up to me oh God not this again I started to drink
Because the harder that you want something, well, the harder it'll hurt, and the harder your dumb heart will try to justify your worth. And the more you try to tell yourself that you're stronger than you think, the stronger proof the booze you'll find yourself needing to drink.
I called out for help. I whispered into the night: I kept on whispering, 'til my lungs imploded and my heart exploded and I no longer had a voice, and eventually, my friends came around.
And I think that I could get by with a little help from my friends, and I think that I could still try with a little help from my friends. Oh, I'll get by with a little help from my friends, with a little help from my friends, with a little help from my friends, with a little help from my...
But my friends have their own problems, and patience only lasts so long, and the levees that I built weren't meant to last a storm this strong, and the part that no one tells you about reaching out for help is that help charges by the hour and when that's hour out...
So if you think you feel something for someone, it's best to let them go, and to harden your weak heart before it has a chance to grow. And if you think you might have felt something that felt like something real --well, that's too bad, because it probably wasn't... It probably wasn't.
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10. |
summer song (17.12.20)
03:47
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12. |
no future (08.03.21)
03:01
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13. |
no headlines (21.03.21)
04:53
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16. |
forever song (07.04.21)
03:03
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17. |
okcupid song (21.08.21)
04:45
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18. |
OK. Goodbye. New Jersey
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.
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