Missing

You know that feeling that you're missing part of your life; that black hole in your past, the empty space of nothing. It doesn't go away in time. I've spent fufilling days and hours but nothing will ever compensate for the missing years I've lost.

It feels like fifth grade was a couple years ago, and nothing has happened since then. Like Wellesley Junior and Senior High never happened. I never walked down halls to class periods, I never was a student.

Apathy is more than just an addiction or a habit, it's a plague. It's a sickness and I'm afflicted.

-Dan

I've Always Been Partial to Gutters Anyway

It's a(nother) dark day.

My portfolio is in limbo, and there are concerns that that is where it will stay. I can't imagine explaining something like that to people, though, so maybe I will finish it one day.

These recent moments have reminded me of the purpose of this cyber-space. I pledged to write here everyday, something bitter or something poignant, something imaginative or something pointless, or worse. I wish I had followed through.

It's calling to me again, words. They've always called to me, even when I'm not listening. Maybe I'm a little desperate, but maybe I should take them a little more seriously? A life supported by words is nothing to be ashamed of. I was never one to worry about bills anyway, I don't think sacrificing a steady income is going to drastically change the way I live my life anyway. I don't think a steady income was anymore than a pipedream anyway.

It's weird to think you expect to be a pennyless adult.

Anyway, enough about me. Let's hear about them...

-Dan

I Can Do This.

I can't do this.

Half a year ago I scanned my journals written and typed for something to draw a poem portfolio from. Worked pretty well, but this is fiction damnit. I can't use three dozen posts about how I can't overcome the large amount of schoolwork I let build up one, two, three, or even four years ago.

For today, 25 pages is a lot to write, especially when you've been mindless. I can't believe it's 5pm on Sunday and I still have everything to write and everything to read, re-read, and re-re-read. Damnit, things really don't change.

But today is not the day to get into that, again. Today is the day (the evening) to write. Let's start, and god damnit, let's finish.

-Dan

The Writer's Role

Just because I'm feeling influential doesn't mean I am. The role of a writer is to be a scribe, and it is nothing but a selfish attempt at solace when we add our own flavor. We're writers; solace is far beyond us now. Whims of grandeur amount to nothing but piles of disjointed nuances with only enough power to usurp the sort of young mind that was once mine.

-Dan

Sliding

Getting my hopes up only makes me realize just how lonely I am here. Or...even there. How do I exist? What unholy conspiracy am I up against? Damnit all, what attainable sum will calm this ache?

I am one stupid, stupid boy. I blew whatever chance I had.

-Dan

235

Night is a scary place; night makes you think. Horrid, horrible restlessness. There is a moral here about loneliness, a moral here about self-image, a moral here about work ethic.

What else is new.

I think I have fallen in love with these hours. I am finally myself, restless in every way that counts.

I'm down to 235 lets say. I haven't weighed this little since middle school, I was a lot shorter then too. I'm slicker now, something like more responsible and rounded. I like *censored* and I'm not sure why. She's cute, she can be funny, she can be smart, and she is so wonderfully awkward. I don't think I will ever stop hesitating though. The timing is perfect, but everything else is not. Does she even think about me, I wonder. Maybe I should know that first.

I wonder if this transfer business is a good idea, I'm tired of being complacent though. Vermont is a beautiful place full of life, and full of people and persons who I can't live without. Maybe Dan is there, too. It would be nice to meet him finally. I'm sick of feeling like that's my fault. They say admitting you have a problem is the first step to fixing it. There's a lot of wrong people out there too.

-Dan

Falling in Love

I fell in love with a girl today. Three minutes later I found out she had a 2 year old son. The internet can be disturbing in so many, many ways. This time I don't feel like vomiting because I unwittingly saw decapitated train victims, instead I'm just disturbed with my desires, and my hopelessness.

-Dann

On Food

Sometimes when you buy a loaf of bread, everything you eat takes a sandwich form. Well I bought a loaf of bread plus 60 dollars worth of groceries. My bank account isn't fairing too well these days though. I spent 30 dollars at Chovy's last weekend. I ate like a king, or maybe a pauper.

I think what bothers me is that I have a meal plan, heavily paid for. I'm eating bananas and peanut butter on wheat, hummus on wheat, sometimes just wheat. Why?

Common sense doesn't hinder my convictions. Maybe that's my overly simplified, inscrutable, intangible, unjustified, and overwhelming problem.

-Dann

Skeletons in the Closet

My past haunts me so, so badly like a bad dream. I can't shake it, because Dan is Danny, and Danny is Dan, so tell me Danny why were you so? So cloudy, or head weak.

Have I really evolved or even just changed? I guess it shouldn't matter. Or unless when life is hard, like right now, falling back to when I was naive and excused would be nice.

I'll always be that kid. Sometimes I think about leaving town, you know? Burning my memories into the ground I used to walk on. Oh, me.

-Dan

The Surface

I've lost my wallet. I'm very insecure about it.

When I first misplaced it, it wasn't a very big deal. Sips of tranquility doused whatever fire of kindled paranoia popped up. It was somewhere. Everything is somewhere. As obvious places and the maybe possibles were checked foolishly throughly, worry set in a bit. And then a bit more. And then maybe even a little more. Oh God, it's somewhere, anywhere! Nowhere...

How much was in it? What needs to be canceled? Replaced? Needlessly worried about? Mountains and four hours worth of high way are between me and home right now, and I reverse blaze the trail tomorrow morning. Time was never on my side, and now the fucker's got a chainsaw aimed at my economic and mental stability. Fuck.

I've seen better days I think. Though, I've been thinking about optimism a lot. How pessimistic am I really? That's another post, another sleepless night though.

I'm hitting a creative wall that I've crashed into often enough. Every story and poem is always lacking, lacking the basic and the trivial, the most mundane of decency. Instead it has the overwhelming, the awful unoriginality. Yet, it's mine; it's me, it's a path well traveled, but still, mine and maybe it's just a work in progress:

Some nights if I close my eyes,
I can see our lives all so bright.

I believe in sailing,
or skimming a water's surface
and
it makes it alright.

It makes it alright when
you're on the water's
surface.

and in my eyes were on the surface
sailing.
not drowning slowly faster;

there are no underwater
deep gapping dark caverns,

no abyss that we've already succumbed to.
I see sun even if its cold tonight.

-Dann

(I was notified it was found 2 hours into my drive home)

The Cutting Board

All the poetry and prose that I'm not sure will ever quite make it. This first one just loves the intangibles:

Understanding is Hubris

No don't say it, don't say it, don't say.
The lies of dirty men will wash away.
and when we smile festively,
like always of course we will,
we'll join translucent hands,
and then we're damned.

Hypocrites may be a heavy jurisdiction
but don't feel like you've been fooled

the void is just a memento
a bow to the absurd.

But of course, there's no excuse.

This next one I kinda like even if it's cliche and has no direction:

Cupid

Here's a rhythm:
I wanna fall in love. Deep love.

That dime a dozen, every day kind of love
the kind that everyone finds.

I want to burn it out too
One passionate kiss that'll burn

so bright, so quick
I'll be blind forever.

I want that.

This one, I actually just like. Maybe I can use it even:

I'm more interested in John Doe and Gerald Pork who as I speak are redefining poetic language in their nooks. It's a raucous bolero that plays as they march around their pauper's grave, grinning a toothless grin as they weep out letters and accolades. They're the heroes that motivate me. Idyllic and oh so frail and courageous.

The rebel and the resistance,
the underdog under the rug.
Forgotten but always lonely.

Here's a concept that I just couldn't grasp. I really love the tree metaphors but I keep forcing them on ideas. It doesn't matter how pointless it is to try and write poetry with the metaphors before the emotion, I still write steaming shit like this all the time:

Arbor-tionist
I've met a lot of trees and have excavated a lot of souls.
Spotting bare branches blooming someone else's dream.
Biding sunlight triumphantly, with a canopy of lies.
I always find spirits dangling off more inspired roots.
I find a lot of seeds too.

I wish I knew how to climb.

I do like that title, I think I'll keep that around.

-Dann

More on Definition

There's something ultimately nihilistic about life today. Some days it's easy to be me; others its far more fun, even realer to be someone else. Yeah, but some days I can't be anyone. Some days I can't be myself. Some days I don't know how to be. It's days like these that keep me thinking; keep me fresh, and keep me alive. These days keep me complacent.

Sometimes I wonder who I'll be for just short of forever. Today I wondered if I'll ever be someone for that long of an eternity.

-Dann

Home (remix)

It's been a moment since

I was on the hills of Allegheny College,
a stone skip away from the
smooth-around-the-edges
cauldesac of Haven Road:
Wellesley, Massachusetts.

What tempid changes?
afflicted over the month of May;

what personality reforming,
shaking my foundation,
flying to Boston?

Such a drastic shift of scenery,
of atmospheric pressues,
that maybe I'm not so delicate,
such a Rosebud afterall.

But somewhere between

the tumbleweeds that roam the boarders
of Meadville's Walmart
parking lot and that parking lot
of Fell's corner, where

I gazed stoned and dismayed
at the officer who rattled on my
car window with nothing to say,

must be me.

I don't really care,
I just want a place to call home.

-Dann

Rhythm

I love that rhythm. You know that rhythm, everyone has been writing about this rhythm. What makes me so special? Why am I writing about rhythm when everyone else has put it so much more elegant? I don't have rhythm, I don't know the rhythm, but damn I like it. So there, that's why I'm writing about the rhythm. No, I can't show you why, just why it is the rhythm is so special; but don't even try and deny me. I know, I believe, I have faith in the rhythm. So I sure as hell gonna write about it, and I'm going to tell you: it's special. It's fantastic. I love this rhythm.

-Dann out

What of Depression?

The depressed are so concerned with a world with no place for them, or more so a them with no place for the world. This is a society blind to individualistic needs, one where there are new concepts of personal need. But take stand, society grows around us; we do not grow around society! Oh to have confidence. To chase skies, oblivions, and sunsets. To walk ranges and canyon comforts and feel no remorse for the others forgotten. For those who trudge.

"Why bother" is much more complicated. And the onlookers assume, but thats such a trivial concern though, don't belittle those who are so distressed.

Can I tell you a secret? Anyone's shoes are easy to fill. Don't tell me it's hard. I wish it was hard.

-Dann

Tell me officer

where is the open frontier?
the virgin sea?

And why am I not exploring them naked?

Well, I seem to be shaking a bit here,
could I get a hug to know you're safe?

-Dann

Ack...

I'm conflicted.

...No, nothing more but the dot of conclusion, I'm conflicted.

I see two selfs slowly defining their way from a mash of incoherency. Dan the quiet stubborn loner, so aware of everyone and everything but himself. He's going to be an artist, he's going to shine and where he walks he will leave a trail of awe.

On the other hand, he's unhappy sitting, fuck sitting, there's a world to conquer. A friend to dominate, an enemy to fuck, he'll carpe your diem and then take a shit on you.

God, I hate myself.

I need to live a life responsibly in the end. Redefine myself, my love, my desires and most importantly, I gotta redefine my actions.

-Who knows.

Home

It's been a moment since I was on the hills of Allegheny College, a stone skip away from the smooth-around-the-edges cauldesac of Haven Road: Wellesley, Massachusetts. What tempid changes afflicted over the month of May; what personality reformed shaking my foundation on the plane ride to Boston? Such a drastic shift of scenery and of atmospheric pressues that maybe I'm not such a delicate Rosebud afterall.

But somewhere between the tumbleweeds that roam the boarders of Meadville's Walmart parking lot and that parking lot down the street, where I gazed stoned and dismayed at the officer who rattled on my car window with nothing to say, must be me.

I don't really care about definiton though, I just want a place to call home.

-Dann

Opposites

I guess it's true, opposites do attract,
how else do you explain such stupid love?
When I look in between your two brown locks
and see those icy blue eyes submitting
the future that my bright green eyes defy.
I think of the day when you maybe think
a little harder about tomorrow,
a little softer about that asshole.

Cause our similarity divides us:
we both pine for the one who we don't have.
But it's cool! Don't worry about it babe,
We're opposites remember? I can
wonder while you're off sleeping without me,
just why do opposites have to attract?

-Dann

Roots

Ansel Adams

Like your hissing reflection
swerving the turf;
you too search for nourishment.

All to supply a boney elm
or a supple palm,
an earnest stump at least.

But unfathomed heavens
linger on earthly shades,
the forgotten shades
of the trampled lonely.

Illuminated, however briefly,
you've made it big now.
With the help of light and luck
you're a specimen, a legend.

Appreciated once by the sustained
but in a heroic flash
now millions more.

-Dann

My Mom Wasn't Jewish

When I met my cousin for the first time I was seven
and we looked almost identical, much like our fathers.
Though when they met again after seven years, they cried at
their dad's funeral; unsure why he had to die for me
to have finally met my twin cousin for the first time.

-Dan

Elephant Rock

Half packed for college and running for elephant rock,
with cold feet I ran through the secluded forest.

Hidden over flourished meadows and behind drizzling creeks
through dark openings and along carved paths.

The beaten roads didn't necessarily lead anywhere,
It was a maze of fallen branches and exposed roots

shadowed by 20 foot maples, elms, and birches.
I decided elephant rock would make sense again.

Because I could never ask my mother,
why she wouldn't let me walk home from school.

Or why I couldn't cross the street alone;
she didn't have to know I scraped my knee

in the middle of an empty forest
that day with Josh. She didn't need to know.

He told me to "stop here," on a pristine horizon where I saw
canopies never ending, the top of a giant broccoli tree.

The leaves a coalition of green,
they flickered in the breeze.

But we rolled ranch dressing down a cliff
to see the splatter of white redeem the regular.

The ketchup bottle from my basement portrayed
convictions on the chalk of their tennis court.

Our forged hopes and childish idols
plagued an in-ground pool and us no longer.

There on this rock, walls confining
disintegrated, freedom was there!

I reached for it alone in my bitterness.
I wanted so much more than my fearful nausea.

The mosquitos were relentless though, I decided to get the hell out.
Searching for light, an opening, pounded dirt pointed to respite

Down Suffolk Road, Elizabeth's house
dwarfed me across the perfectly paved street.

And when I made it back I continued packing stupidly content
with my courage. I almost found elephant rock one last time.

I got on the plane the next day waving to my parents,
I began climbing the jagged clouds.

-Dann

I Remember

Knowing I'd be
four forever.

Hanging like
a four-year-old; spine
molded toe to head
on a paisley sofa.

Velcroed light-ups bouncing
off the window like red
cheeks filling slowly.

The white blank ceiling,
marveled at how much cleaner
the room looked that way.

And noticing for once the rosy
red candles on the mantel.

Least until Count Chocula,
the cereal commercial, ended.

Eureka's Castle returned
to muppet my bright window.

-Dann

Sensability

I don't know many people who wage wars on trivial daily assignments. Sometimes I wonder if it's necessary, but I can't imagine my life any other way. And maybe others frown or tsk, but I don't see any merits on their mantels that I could not have earned just as easily. Students beside me sacrifice their moments for a well paid respectable future. Me? I sacrifice for the only future I know; yours.

Maybe one day I'll finally understand. But maybe just maybe, one day everyone else will.

Time to start studying.

-Dann

Credits Ready to Roll

Two back to back all nighters, I've done worse as say those in the house I lived in at the end of last semester. Though maybe "lived" is the wrong word, I would hardly call that shell I was alive.

So what's the story? Classes are over, I'm underwhelmed despite the life defining work I have this next week. It's really down to the last week, I'm impressive like that. I should write movies, the climax would last 2 hours alone. Oh the suspense! And he's still not motivated, I can hardly take it. Then again, I can't imagine too much action. I don't like resolvable conflict.

Expect an influx of poetry as I begin work on my portfolio this next week. I need 9 pristine poems, just perfect enough to make the moon weep from the sheer beauty. I don't think that will be too hard though, will it?

We're almost through now.

-Dann

Insomniatic Poet

We're past the 48 hour mark now. My sleepless nights have left me shuddering quite literally. Today I read two poems. I'd like to think they were ready, finalized, but I'm not so sure, especially with the second one.

Song Bird

Everyone’s head nods
in rhythm and into slumber
with a thump that jars me awake.

My computer screen illuminates:
wrinkled bags hanging eyelids,
hair slopped side ways,
and the one strip of defiance
sticking straight up,
rigid, weird.

Eyes so burned, brown,
and crisp just to betray me;
slouching over tacking ticking
keys punched in to manifest.

But time slips off
darting indexes into tomorrow,
before today even concludes.

For it's light again, says the song bird,
with his two lonely notes; twit then tweet.

Twit then tweet, in stoic melody,
a twit for the sun, a tweet for the moon.
A rhythm so lonely and honest,
the song bird continues through the morning.
The song bird continues through the light

Apology

Mom,
I’m sorry for being a leaf,
I never took root.

And my rigid edges protected
just how I feel from you.

When I drooped
over the lonely branch,
when I shimmered,
sobbing the dew,
when I contemplated,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry
I was being a leaf.

When browning too early,
burning out in the sun,
when bending over fired grasses,
crunching as they browned me out,
when finding comforts under
the earthly elements you hid from me,
I was being a leaf.
I’m sorry.

Leaves forget roots, take flight,
drift from one town to another state
and for being a leaf,
for never taking root,
I’m sorry mom.
I’m sorry.

I need to finish this essay before 5 now. After that I submit myself to sweet, sweet, dreamless slumber.

-Dann

Song Bird

I wrote this in 5 minutes, I've decided that the amount of time I put into a poem has absolutely no correlation to how good it is.

Formed rhythms beat
one, two, three bathroom doors
open, doors close.
Toothbrushes click off the tile
falling into molded holsters.
Bladders empty, heads nod
in rhythm to sleep, and
with a thump, into slumber,

to jar me awake.
And the glow,
of the creaking laptop screen
as it opens to luminate:
wrinkled bags hanging eyelids,
hair slopped side ways,
and the one strip of defiant
sticking straight up,
rigid and weird.

Eyes so burned and brown
crisp like everything he is not;
slouching over tacking ticking
keys that manifest his stupor.

Time slips off darting indexes,
a fog of epiphanies dissolve
into tomorrow before
today even concluded.

For it's light again, says the song bird,
with his two lonely notes; twit then tweet.

Twit then tweet, in defiant melody,
a twit for the sun, a tweet for the moon.
a rhythm so lonely and honest,
the song bird continues through the morning.

-Dann

Notions

Sometimes I have to wonder whether I'm just full of shit or not. Maybe those defense mechanisms, the ones I'm so damned scared of, have usurped my very sense of reality. And don't get me started on reality. Fuck perceived notions of reality. Also, fuck philosophy 160 while we're at it.

My convoluted perceptions of myself are starting to piss me off, but ignoring everything I know, to be content, I just can't...

Maybe one day I can articulate this better.

-Dann

Heart Beats

Sometimes I wonder if the turmoil is worth it. Worth what? --Myself, the vague oasis in a desert of mirages. I wonder if it's worth it, being right, and never tripping. I wonder if almost dying, almost crying, is worth whatever ideal self I still haven't realized I want.

I feel original though. Carving a path even though every action and emotion I emit is nothing more than a mimicked gesture. If I die tomorrow, at least I'll know I was great.

-Dann

Smoke Rings

I never saw the merit in cigarettes until tonight.

I bought a pack for writing term papers. They helped me earlier this year in February, but not like this. This content feeling, I'm riding through conflicted feelings and general angst like a cowboy narrator.

And, I promise I won't get addicted.

-Dann

Moving Forward

I'm trying to figure out how I've changed. I'm reading over old blog entries, hoping hindsight is indeed 20/20, but perhaps I'm not quite there yet. Despite poor vocabulary and the awkwardness that is adolescence, the issues I articulate persist.

I need some conviction, I need some action. Worst yet, I haven't had either of these in years.

This poetry assignment is turning me upside down. Trying to recall my childhood and put it to words. It's not that I have some terrible childhood I don't like to remember, it's that I honestly thought I had a pristine childhood I wanted to remember.

There is nothing I would like more than to have the posts from my old blog right now, the one from late middle school and early high school. Maybe that would prove I haven't been a awkward depressed existentialist for my entire life.

-Dann

Bong Rips

It's funny how quickly my convictions fade. Bong rips will do that to you though.

I'll be back.

-Dann

Visions

I had a vision, sitting in the student office of Murray Hall, a vision I doubt.

Today I decided to be an English major. I did not think this through. I don't think things through.

Sitting in the student office, the one that is filled on any given day with at least one of four students waiting for menial tasks, I envisioned. Something drew me to my old blog then and something clicked, like it usually does.

A new blog, something of a journal. I wanted to write, and still do, I wanted to write every day, why didn't I write? A poem or a ramble, maybe something important, but something every day. Maybe someone would even read it. So here we are, Thursday, and I doubt my vision, just like I usually do.

Am I really just some amorphous clay waiting to be pressed into anywhich mould? I'm not sure anymore, I seem to enjoy breaking moulds far more.

Tell me sage, do I push on? Maybe you're my savior; here to save me from my daily drag and deliver me into career. I don't know if I want to risk that.

-Dann

For Being a Leaf

Loneliness, I'll never understand you...What honest sense do you make? I can't fret her absence when I haven't met her yet. Am I weird for not filling that void?

Here is a poem I have worked on since January. The different ways it has manifested itself, this poem has been as amorphous as me, and honestly, it is me. It has been for my mom from the start, I haven't decided whether or not to give it to her once I complete a final draft though.

Brown Hues

I'm sorry mom for being a leaf
I'm sorry I never took root.

And if my rigid edges prevent you
from ever knowing just how I feel
then I'm sorry mom,
I'm sorry for being a leaf.

And when I drooped over
a lonely branch.
And when I shimmered
sobbing the dew.
And when I contemplated,
I'm sorry. I'm sorry

for browning too early;
burning out in the sun
rootless.
I'm sorry,

I'm sorry mom for being a leaf;
for bending over fired grasses
and crunching as they browned me out.

I'm sorry mom,
for finding comfort under the earthly
elements you hid me from, I'm sorry.

For forgetting about roots and taking flight
I'm sorry mom for being a leaf.

When you saw me drift
from one town to another state
you must have cried.

But I'm sorry for being a leaf, mom.
I'll always be sorry, mom, for being a leaf.

And now to begin my day. What will I do with my essay unfinished? Will I finish it God willing? Questions always plague my mind, maybe I just prefer these reality pertaining questions over the immaterial ones that plague me a thousand times more when I run out of reality. Also, what do you think of the title "Brown Hues"? I don't like it.

-Dann

Sage Advice

This barren wasteland of porn and pointlessness; what's up? How's it going? It's sure been awhile.

What thoughts grace my restless head? I'm never quite sure, I like it that way. Perhaps that's why I'm here again, you sage of advice. How many pointless discussions have we debated into uncertainty? How many secrets of mine do you hide?

I've returned for answers, that's it. And look, I'm already finding them.

-Dann

Triumphant Return

Welcome back to the interweb, Dan.