Temporary Antidote

You can't kill tears with laughter
It's just a temporary antidote
And shallowly, it cures you
But it leaves a hollow inside
Filled with emptiness
A home for your sorrow
A safe place
Where time cannot repel it

Doesn't it feel safer to keep it
You know that it's there
Even though you pretend it's gone
Who was the exorcist of your grief
Someone who agreed to take the blame
Agreed to maintain your shield
But it weighs heavily on your heart
To carry

Is it too late to dream
When all the voices that whispered to you
Were banned from your mind years ago
All those whispers that were passionate
That told you about wonders of the world
Beckoning you to follow
Is it too late to awaken them

The walls you've sealed yourself in with are too high
Habit and denial keep you from tearing them down
There'll be no catapults to attack you here
All they need to do is wait
While you corrode
While you rust away

The damage is done and you're the maker of your own disaster
You were too blind and young to make the right decisions
It could have been undone if you had opened your eyes
But you drove yourself towards destruction
And now you have to pay the price
Pay the price for pride and self-deceit

You can't kill tears with laughter
And you can't afford to be selfish again
Selfishness was what got you here
It's too late to listen to those voices
And it is too late to aim for dreams
They'll always remain improbable, and silly
But in secret you cling to your dreams
And visualize a better existence
When you cry, at the end of the day
And no one sees you
You can lay off the antidote, if only for a while
And let the poisonous childish wishes rule
Aware that they will never come true

And you tell yourself, tears are better
Than emptiness

Ode To Manic-Depression

Don't I longingly speak of you
Glorifying you after you died
I make you swirl with butterflies
And place you in the sunlight
Where you never actually were

Don't I somehow miss having you
Although you chained me down
You opened my veins and let me out
You became my channel for despair
The only way to create the great art

Is there something hollow in my words now
Now that you're no longer my driving force
Don't I admit that it's different now
Doesn't that make any difference

I tried in every way to kill you
While simultaneously clinging on to your presence
Every ounce of you, of your darkness
While I fought you, I would have died
I would have been burned by all the false lights
The lights they turned on me in mutual understanding
Didn't I live, even with my burned skin and my scars
Didn't I prove them wrong, didn't I try

Wasn't for once the solution to grasp desperation
I never asked for anyone to cure me
To lure me in, make me adjust to their standards
Provide me with their only answer, to conform
Do what was expected of me, forget the ghosts
They didn't see that they were killing me

Don't I longingly speak of you
Sometimes, when everything seems hollow
And I almost tip over, almost summon you to life
Just to make my whispers live again

I was only driven towards my fading dreams because of you
You were the only thing that kept me from drowning
Even though I was in your stranglehold
You were the only thing that made me struggle through
I wish I'll never find myself in need of you, again
But I'll be the first one to admit it's empty without you
And some of that fire that burned me, that drove me on
Is now gone

Don't I longingly speak of you
Glorifying you after you died
As so often happens
I owe my life and creation to you
And so I'll always hate you, but love you, too
Just because my whispers are emptier now
And the old desperation is forced by my own hand
Instead of forged by you and planted in my head
Maybe it's the same
Some would say it was
But it doesn't feel the same
It doesn't feel the same

Words, Words, Words

Things seem really terrific at the moment, it's almost hard to believe it. I got quite a few things to look forward to. The biggest, and best, thing is that I managed to get a part time job this fall... teaching writing. Writing! Creative writing! I feel so lucky. My employer sounded really positive, already when she first called me up, but I still wasn't expecting to actually get the position even as I went to the interview. And the interview was more of a so-how-would-you-prefer-to-plan-these-writing-sessions and here's-how-much-you're-going-to-get-paid than your traditional interview. I really had no need to be nervous. The position is at an open form of school, where people of all ages and backgrounds pay to take courses in various subjects. The job stretches over a couple of weeks and I can't wait to get started. I'm really inspired and want to get started to inspire the others, too. I'm also excited because the pay will definitely help me get to London over New Year's. I'm so looking forward to that (although I could do without the winter that inevitably follows).


I got into the 3D-sculpting summer class, meaning I'll be learning some well-needed extra 3D modeling during the summer while also trying to work a little bit; and I'm the 8th reserve to get into a writing class in English that would be perfect to take before I start to work. Hopefully, people will have found other things to do during the summer and decline their spots so I can spend parts of the summer writing. It'll be nice preparation and hell, nice fun too. Also, I read about some kind of Nanowrimo camp where they are going to arrange a Nanowrimo outside of November, which I might take inofficial part of. We'll see. I definitely have enough projects as it is, hell knows that. But just in case summer and all this sun I'm so unused to would bore me, ha, ha.


We're taking a class currently called Digital Cultures that has actually made me stop and think (who knew?). We've been discussing the idea of creating worlds, in which multiple, complex and related stories can take place and together make up a whole, rather than creating a single, one-way story. Worlds with multiple stories within it can cross platforms, and play out in different medias, but still be part of the same universe. I've found this thought so enticing that I've thought to experiment a bit with it in my current novel project. Overall I'm thinking to do some changes to the story after some late night thinking a few days ago - I will no longer tell it from first person but instead from third. This is because telling it in first person will reveal much more about the main character's thoughts and feelings, without even me intending so, and I want to twist the story a bit more into the cryptic. Secondly, I won't tell it entirely chronologically, but rather explain some events as I go, to the extent they need to be explained. Thirdly, I will try to create the universe and the idea of the universe, style and intention of it, and then let this story be one of many that take place within it. The real challenge here is to create a world so believable, yet different, and at the same time rich enough to provide a wide network of possible side references (this, to a non-writer, or even some writers, may seem a bit too intricate, but I actually do find it interesting, and challenging). Who knows? Maybe I'll put something together out of bits and pieces of old gems. Or create it from scratch. We'll see. All I know right now, is that Terry Grant is one of the important sub-story characters, that there will be some element of broadcasting (an invention of mine rather than the traditional sense of the word) and that Five-Eyes will be present, at some point.


In fact, I think I'll head off for some world-creating right now.
Cheers,
POET IN THE INSPIRED JAR