Bending The Universe

by Justin Wetch

  I could see a whole new color, it seemed

  The primary three, and this new fourth color

  That I couldn’t quite pin down, but around you

  Drab gray became vibrant summer.

  We watched the sunset together again

  For the umpteenth time, it didn’t dismay

  But when I looked for you, you had disappeared

  I had to stop searching as last light faded away.

  When I awoke the next morning,

  Something had gone terribly wrong.

  The sunrise was dull and disappointing

  And the birds sang a most discordant song.

  When you left, you left a void

  In my perspective of the world

  Leaving me to see everything

  Nasty, distorted, and curled.

  It was the same as it had been at the start

  Before you taught me to see a new way

  But having tasted the finest of life

  The old way wouldn’t do, this wasn’t okay.

  Like looking at the sun, recovery takes time

  And time is a tedious medicine

  Looking back, I began to wonder

  If your love was ever genuine.

  But it was for the best, I’m now quite sure

  I learned and experienced new things

  And yes, it does sometimes still feel

  Like your leaving chopped off my wings…

  I used to see a sunset

  And marvel at it’s beauty

  The sight of the sun dancing down

  Was enough for me.

  Now I look at a sunset

  And nearly smile at its beauty

  The sight of the sun dancing down

  Is almost enough for me.

  LITHIUM

  Manic, intense highs

  Followed by horrific, terrible lows

  Strobing between blinding light

  And blind darkness.

  This bipolarity encapsulates her love;

  Sometimes we are a storybook romance

  And sometimes a vendetta of revenge.

  Sometimes it feels like even if

  Every inch of my skin was touching yours

  I still wouldn’t be close enough to you.

  And other times even if we were

  On opposite ends of the globe

  I would still feel too close to you.

  Have you ever wanted to love someone so powerfully

  So desperately, so obsessively

  That they destroy who you are as a person?

  That the fabric of your life is burned to a crisp

  by the unending intensity of it all…

  Those are the highs.

  In those times, her love spreads a silly stuporous smile

  Across my canvas of a face

  And I couldn’t be higher.

  But when you go too high, you run out of Oxygen.

  Love gives the best of highs

  But also the worst of hangovers.

  When vision blurs

  And indecision surges

  It’s like looking into the black abyss of space

  From the surface of the sun

  The sheer light behind you

  Masks the stars ahead

  And everything is blackness.

  Even simple things are joyless

  And our love

  Which once lit up every corner of the universe

  Now barely keeps dying embers aglow.

  To treat this bipolarity, the doctors prescribed Lithium.

  Lithium is a woman of steady goodness

  She knows nothing of mountains or valleys

  Only flat, endless plains

  Which little effort is required to move through

  But there are no captivating views.

  My first love wore vibrant colors at times

  And funeral dresses at others

  Lithium wears only a calming grey

  And knows nothing of frowns

  Only a perpetual smile.

  She is always calm

  And would never suggest silly things

  Like cliff diving or random midnight drives…

  Our calendars are planned and always followed through

  And she always thinks three steps ahead.

  Every Sunday after church

  We eat at the same cafe

  She orders the same salad and black coffee

  And I order a trip down memory lane

  To a time with my first love

  When I was so caught up in her

  That I forgot to eat for two days…

  She talks of marriage now

  We go so well together, she says,

  And we never, ever clash!

  We never make offensive jokes

  Or improvise our lines

  But hey, we’re happy, aren’t we?

  Aren’t we?

  So why do I want to go off my meds?

  When Lithium leaves her night light on

  —she can never sleep without it, she says—

  I only long for darkness.

  What is this sickness within me

  That longs to be burnt to ashes by a fierce passion

  And hates this peace?

  This dreadful, meaningless, horrible, good calmness.

  So in the middle of the night

  I awaken in a cold sweat

  And without a plan, leaving everything behind

  I flee to a foreign city

  Where I don’t even speak the language

  Where the doctors don’t know my name

  Where the Lithium will soon wear off

  And I will soon be free again.

  I don’t want safety or guarantees—

  I want a life worth living.

  I want to jump off a skyscraper

  And fashion a parachute on the way down

  Out of my fears and trepidations

  Because sometimes survival

  Isn’t the most important thing

  And surviving

  Isn’t the same as living.

  With arms opened wide I await

  The oncoming storm

  That wonderful, violent, colorful storm

  It may destroy every particle of me

  But at least I’ll feel alive and free.

  Perhaps these are the words

  Of someone who learned to love passionately;

  Or perhaps these are the last words

  Of a junkie who couldn’t get high enough.

  section three

  life

  SECTION III: LIFE

  CONTENTS:

  Dust On This Piano

  Empty Wealth

  Retirement

  Dreaming

  Music Theory (Of Life)

  As Joy Dwindles With The years

  Hiding From Silence

  Clearing The Scoreboard

  Frostbite

  Dietary Considerations

  Monuments of Ink

  Monuments of Pixels & Light

  Newton’s Third Law of Emotion

  Life Is Profoundly Sad

  Discovering Mental Injuries

  Postmodern Angst

  Midnight

  Goodbye

  The Wave

  A Man in the Rain

  What a beautiful, relentlessly haunting thing; the space between hope and reality.

  DUST ON THIS PIANO

  In the attic of this old house,

  Up the creaky, torn carpet stairs;

  I draw open the curtains;

  Light permeates the air.

  My eyes squint as the sun

  Announces its presence with a shout.

  Here, packed away in cardboard boxes;

  Are dreams that never panned out.

  Dust settles in the sun’s rays

  Calmly on a mute piano

  A paintbrush’s tip lies dried up

  No mark on this canvas but shadow.

  A paper lies on an old wooden deskr />
  And on it, a pencil with broken lead.

  A glass of lukewarm water sits

  Next to half a piece of rotted bread.

  I have to ask, what happened here?

  With a teardrop-stained mirror, broken;

  So much wasted potential--

  A door locked, but left open.

  Perhaps here I see the crime scene

  Where someone was given a toxin

  Or suffocated until all they had

  To breathe with was oxygen.

  I see the seat where Mozart was killed

  Crushed by this pile of textbooks.

  And here, DaVinci bled to death

  Cut by this stack of bills, it looks.

  So, why this massacre of genius?

  Perhaps under so much pressure

  Only a cog in the machine is made

  Not always some diamond treasure.

  It is such a pity how some people

  Are dead long before their hearts stop beating.

  This old man died at twenty-five

  When life told him to stop dreaming.

  Perhaps it is not too late for me

  To escape this endless loop

  Maybe those who live past death

  Are the ones who continued to hope.

  I wipe the dust off this piano

  Watch it flee away, escaping

  As I push down on this untuned key

  I feel a life worth living awaiting.

  EMPTY WEALTH

  Ten thousand dollar suit

  Two thousand dollar shoes

  Boasting of immense wealth

  But never knowing what’s true.

  Matching Rolex watches

  Not happy after all

  Bought a huge new mansion

  With gold-plated walls.

  A garage full of Lamborghinis

  Can’t fill an empty heart

  Sometimes even the rich

  Wish for a fresh start.

  A pocket full of cash

  Nothing left to spend it on

  Already bought the world

  Done everything that's wrong.

  People say they’re his friend

  But how could he ever be sure?

  When you leave a trail of dollar bills

  You can’t be sure your loves are pure.

  What use is it, really

  To take your millions to the grave

  When instead of living life

  You've become your own slave?

  This is the life of a millionaire

  A glass so full it's empty

  A hole that can't be filled

  By a new Mercedes or a Bentley.

  Nothing he can't have

  Except for what he wants

  A shadow of the real thing

  A phantom desire still haunts

  He'd willingly go poor

  Just to have a real friend;

  You can have the whole world,

  But your world will have to end.

  We believe that more is better

  But sometimes less is more

  Sometimes endless wealth is empty

  A pot of gold with a trap door.

  Because if you've gained everything

  It becomes its own prison walls

  Don't lose what matters most

  To get what doesn't matter at all.

  RETIREMENT

  They give us eighteen years

  To figure out how to spend our lives;

  We’re pushed towards high-paying careers

  At the cost of letting our dreams die.

  They say it’ll all be worth it

  When you finally get to retire

  When you run out of things

  To shoot for, to aspire.

  Is it really worth it

  To spend all these years

  Navigating a maze of mirrors

  Building someone else’s empire

  Just so that our last decade

  When our bodies have already decayed

  Will at last be peaceful?

  Let us hold a funeral for happiness

  Let us mourn the death of joy

  Crunching corporate numbers all day

  Darkens our inner light ‘till it’s destroyed.

  Does it have to be this way?

  Is this the only available path?

  It’s all so confusing and nonsensical

  Like those formulas in math.

  I want my life to be more

  Than a dollar figure amount

  Or the statistics in my bank account;

  I want to live a life

  Where retirement isn’t necessary,

  Where all my years are satisfactory.

  I won’t live for life’s last decade.

  DREAMING

  I remember sitting in bed, as a child

  looking up at the ceiling

  I couldn’t sleep, of course,

  And so set about to thinking

  I wondered, what are dreams made of?

  Are they stardust and galaxies?

  Are they the tendrils of existence

  Reaching inwards from eternity?

  I didn’t know, and really, still don’t.

  All I knew and know is what it’s like

  When reality loses its hardened grasp

  On perception, as dullness begins to die

  As the body begins to be motionless

  And the truth comes out as we lie

  Silently for hours, flying into that

  Far away, beautiful landscape beyond here.

  Dreaming with eyes closed to the world

  But this is no inhibition to seeing

  A world somehow beyond this one

  Frail, crumbling, loose, and fleeting;

  An oddball splattering of paints

  Mixed from real life and something else,

  They ooze together on this canvas and so die

  To come alive in some other realm.

  Light whirls in eight-dimensional streams

  Darkness is contained in a crystal hidden

  Behind our eyes to protect our innermost dreams

  From the ease of destruction of all new things;

  Dreams flutter and leave behind a trace

  As eyes match the motion and slowly open—

  Briefly, magic and Earth are both in place;

  I lament the sadness of being awoken.

  MUSIC THEORY (OF LIFE)

  Life is a decrescendo until death

  With many flats

  And few rests

  Ending in a full stop

  Modulating into madness

  Suspension into sadness

  Vibrato relieving the flatness

  Moonlit sonata against the blackness

  Chords of misery

  Triads of despair

  Bars of brokenness

  Coalescing in crescendos

  Motifs of mystery

  Transposing terribly

  Into dark dissonance

  Whole notes of pain

  Boredom and darkness

  Half notes of light

  Flirting and romance

  Quarter notes of peace

  Quiet and simplicity

  What is life, if not a song

  Made of imperfect melodies

  And it ends before too long

  With cruelty in great quantity

  But perhaps it's not all dark

  Nor does light come without energy

  Perhaps perspectives make their mark

  And put dissonance into harmony.

  AS JOY DWINDLES WITH THE YEARS

  Why do the holidays

  Lose their charm over the years?

  Why does Christmas

  Not seem like Christmas anymore?

  These special days

  Lose their magic

  With the passing of time.

  It flows from us

  Betraying us

  For the next generation.

&nbs
p; I envy the sparkle

  In their young eyes

  As they are still enchanted

  By fairies, santa, and

  A host of joyful lies.

  I recall the way

  A present used to feel

  Like a box of endless mystery

  In my hands;

  My own portal

  To a world

  Of infinite possibility

  Of infinite amazement.

  Now I get things I need

  Instead of fuel for the imagination;

  —Legos used to call my mind

  To hours of new adventures

  Building spaceships and skyscrapers

  Rising high above that stained carpet

  Into the cosmos above

  Beyond mere reality—

  Now here’s some flavored coffee

  To work harder with

  And watch the hours pass by

  Ever faster and faster.

  What is it about growing older

  That bites venomously

  Into the neck of hope?

  As joy dwindles with the years

  I wistfully recall

  When the christmas tree

  Looked ten feet tall

  And the presents under it

  Seemed endless

  And more

  Than mere wrapping paper.

  Kiss goodbye to wonder, once so near;

  Must joy dwindle so with the years?

  HIDING FROM SILENCE

  Blaring loud music

  Flipping through channels

  Insanity, excuse it

  Anything to avoid silence

  Who’s dating who?

  Celebrities and gossip

  Like animals at a zoo

  We are so predictable.

  Distraction after distraction

  To keep real thoughts away

  Lulling ourselves into inaction

  We talk so much yet we have nothing to say.

  Mathematical formulas

  couldn’t quantify the feeling

  The inevitability of death

  And the slowness of mental healing.

  We hide from silence

  For it forces us to think

  Where our lives are going

  and what makes us distinct.

  So stop hiding from silence

  Introspection is no evil thing

  Listen to your heart and self

  Silence is good, though it stings.

  CLEARING THE SCOREBOARD

  It’s all too easy to start keeping score

  Of those who hurt you, and do you wrong

  It’s so easy to say someone owes you

  To hold a grudge for ever so long.

  These scoreboards are heavy and hard

  To carry around on your back

  It’s such a powerful inner monster

  Who sees every slight as an attack.

  It sounds simple, but is harder than it looks