Bending The Universe

by Justin Wetch

  MUSINGS

  These thoughts are cancerous and poetry is chemo

  Love is my slot machine and life my casino

  Me versus myself, the score is still zero

  This battle's bloodier than a film by Tarantino.

  It’s all gone to nonsense, it’s a woozy, it’s a wozzie

  Drifting off mid-sentence like a verbal kamikaze...

  Searching for myself, found you, but lost me

  Love is priceless but that doesn't mean it's not costly.

  A walking dichotomy of darkness and light

  Trying to be successful just out of self-spite

  Invisible thoughts blocking my sight

  Smothering myself, in the hopes I’ll ignite.

  Firing on all cylinders, but I'm the squarest of all

  Pushing against myself, Newton's third law.

  Tape together shattered pieces, ignore the cracks and flaws

  Emotion, like sushi, is best served raw.

  THE ACTOR

  Red curtains drape down from the ceiling

  Lights ready, music, and so it begins

  I step forward and whoosh, the curtains part

  Like the red sea did for moses.

  I speak with a voice, not mine

  and with words I can’t take credit for

  If I portray this character well enough

  The actor will be lost and the character remembered.

  The love interest is introduced on stage

  I declare my love for her with orchestrated feeling

  The audience claps when we kiss, but I

  Feel nothing, of course; it’s just an act.

  An emotional soliloquy follows,

  and with it, conjured tears

  We take our bows when the final act ends

  The audience roars with approval;

  They get up to leave at last and I,

  I wash the stage make up off, but look the same.

  A fan comes up after the show,

  and asks for my autograph

  Oops, I’ve signed the character’s name, not mine

  But it doesn’t matter, they’re the same.

  They think it’s my Modus Operandi

  But this performance is my Magnum Opus

  Real life is just another stage.

  Just another stage where I have to look and act

  Like I have everything put together;

  everything neat, perfect, and in order,

  when in reality I’m slowly dying,

  Slowly decaying, screaming and clawing,

  at this little box I’ve been put into,

  Trying desperately to escape.

  I’m just a character, with my face, my name,

  my voice, but the words that come out

  of my mouth

  were put there by others.

  I fear that one day I will fall so deeply in character

  That I will forget the person I one day wish

  To find the courage to actually be.

  The crowd screams for an encore;

  Heart racing, pulse at machine gun pace,

  I step forward, ignoring the withering glares

  of the other actors in this play we call life;

  I step forward, and for this final act,

  and all other acts, going forward,

  For the encore and eternity, I promise to be

  Myself.

  I WANTED TO ASK YOU

  I wanted to ask you

  Whether you’d ever heard

  A piece of music so beautiful,

  That it shattered who you are

  And glued the pieces back together

  Into some beautiful new configuration;

  I wanted to ask you, truly

  But I did not have the courage

  To look so deeply into your soul

  In fear that I would, in doing so, find

  Things in my own mind I had been hiding

  From myself.

  I wanted to ask you

  What thoughts plague your mind

  When you stay up past midnight

  And allow your brain to think freely;

  I wanted to know, truly I did so,

  But I merely wanted, and did not do.

  I wanted to ask you

  Many a thing, telling it true

  I wanted to delve into your soul

  And find out what makes you, you;

  I wanted to, but I guess I’ll just settle

  For a “I’m good, how about you?”

  FINGERPRINTS

  The ridges of your fingertips match

  The ridges of my brain;

  Every wavy, fossilized scratch

  Is one and the same.

  Like a handprint in cement

  An indelible mark has been left

  My identity has been bent

  At the point where your fingers pressed.

  Some people leave their marks

  All over your identity;

  Some leave beautiful art

  And others graffiti obscenities.

  Some plant sweet fruits

  In the brain’s plowed ridges

  And the nefarious produce

  Poisons and call them riches.

  The dust of time reveals these crimes

  Where marks were left in dark of youth

  Look between these fingerprint lines

  As night ends, light reveals the truth.

  HONESTY IN WRITING

  I find that lately

  In the words I’ve been writing

  I’ve been truthful

  But not quite honest.

  I’ve told of deep loves

  Lasting scars, thoughts,

  And my favorite brand

  of candy bar, but

  I’ve been holding back.

  I haven’t told the world

  Of my inspirations,

  my idols, my beliefs,

  my values, my code,

  I haven’t been honest

  About the whole person I am.

  I’ve shown beauty, but

  Held back the darkness, I’ve

  Spoken loudly and dropped the mic

  But refrained from quietest mumbles,

  And truly I believe the difference

  Is more important than you

  might realize.

  If I may dip into the philosophical;

  The somewhat meandering,

  But altogether more honest

  Realm of existence, as it were;

  I would say I’ve been showing

  The world my art, but

  I have not been showing the world

  Who I am.

  I’ve been writing in stanzas

  As they reflect clean thoughts

  But held back from the dirty,

  messy, inappropriate, but

  Entirely honest realm

  of the things in life

  That go against what you

  might expect.

  SELF-DIAGNOSIS

  I’ve been worried since I left the womb

  Like a schizophrenic on shrooms

  Like a hypochondriac on crack

  Never shy with the panic attacks;

  Internal reality succumbs to psychosis

  Dreams destroyed by self-diagnosis.

  I’ve been alone since I learned to think

  Like an alcoholic forced to drink

  Like a gambler looking for jinx

  Like a broke junkie huffing ink;

  Fighting a battle where I’ve already been beat

  I unchain my demons and let them speak.

  “You were a failure before you first tried

  Like a blank shot with no bullet inside;

  You’re an offbeat song with no melody

  A brain surgeon born with leprosy

  You will look upon a failed life and weep

  Blood, brains, dirt; at last you’ll sleep.”

  I have no response or retort

  No defending law
yer in this court

  Back against the wall, me versus them all

  Fistfight my demons ‘till one of use falls

  I don’t have possessions or methods to cope

  Just some luck, this mind of mine… and hope.

  GRAPHOLOGY

  I wonder if future archaeologists

  Will unearth these written works of mine

  Handwritten, as always

  And attempt to decipher

  The person I was

  Based on my handwriting.

  Here we see he crosses his t's

  About halfway, they might say

  And his writing slants rightward

  About fifteen degrees;

  Might they think they've

  Cracked my code

  In all my complexities?

  The swooping g indicates indecisiveness

  And the looped l a sense of pride;

  Double-crossed t's scream of dishonestly

  And the sharp n tells of pain...

  Is this splotch of water from tears

  Or just rain?

  Cryptographers may study me

  And my writing for a day

  Or a decade perhaps, though even then

  The truth is equally far away.

  Sadly, we have no control

  Of what history will think

  We were trying to say.

  SADISTIC FICTION

  I’ve always hated it when authors seem to find joy

  In killing my favorite characters.

  With gleaming eyes they toy

  With turmoil in every chapter.

  Just when they’ve got you attached

  To the character’s quirks and flaws

  To their words and their demons

  Just when you’ve fallen in love

  With the character’s identity—

  With a cruel turn of the lip

  The author smirks and kills them off

  And at our gasped pleas, merely scoffs.

  But the author was God

  And my favorite character was you

  And I still can’t believe

  You’re gone.

  WANDERING SOUL

  I am a wandering soul

  Looking for something more

  I feel this constant pull

  A longing I just can’t ignore.

  I’ve searched the rocks of mountains

  I’ve knelt on cathedral stones

  Sleepless nights by the thousands

  Have left weariness in my bones.

  Question marks are met with periods

  By people full of arrogance

  They have every answer, nothing mysterious

  And yet they have no evidence.

  Love and hate, yin and yang

  Meditation, medication, therapy

  Multiverse, strings, the big bang

  It’s all helplessness to me.

  I am a wandering soul

  Looking for truth and meaning

  And though my life may never feel full

  At least I find solace in searching.

  UNCHARTED

  I look upon a frigid, empty abyss

  Filled with a million human beings

  A city whose name is foreign to my tongue

  And whose air reeks of cigarettes

  Expelled from the lungs of many wayward souls

  Each one hastening the coming of death

  Seeking the end of fruitless searching.

  We are each on our own quests

  To find meaning in our lives

  But the meaning we seek

  Is only a reflection

  Of everything we have lost before.

  I look up at a dark ceiling.

  Sleep is a lover

  Who never arrives

  When she promised she would

  She offers no excuse for her lateness

  But nonetheless her arrival is welcomed.

  This is one of those nights

  Where she has stood me up

  For the thousandth time;

  But my body betrays my hatred of her

  And I give in to her demands

  Like a ghost given to drunkenness.

  I feel despair from deep in my soul

  It is a well of constant outpouring;

  Hope tempts from the other side

  But it cannot be trusted

  Because that's the thing about hope—

  It's just despair with wings.

  Truly, the worst kind of loneliness

  Is not even having yourself

  To stand by.

  I look up upon a sparsely starred abyss

  Having wandered to this street corner

  In the middle of the night

  Watching the cars and people go by

  Wondering

  If this deep, black nothingness

  Is the sum total of being human.

  KEEPING CREATIVITY

  The composer Hans Zimmer once said

  He felt that creativity was like

  A faucet of running water

  A source from somewhere else,

  The origin of which was a mystery;

  He said he was afraid that one day

  The faucet would run dry

  And this mysterious flow

  Of talents, creativity, and love,

  Would suddenly run out.

  I, too, know this feeling—

  I cannot identify within myself

  The origin of talents.

  But I am not afraid

  of the day the faucet

  runs dry.

  I see it this way;

  I have been given these many

  talents, abilities, thoughts,

  creativity, and so much more,

  But they are not mine to keep!

  No, they are given to me

  So that I may return them to the world

  Many, many times over;

  Our light was not meant to be kept

  To ourselves until it burns down

  To ashes;

  No.

  Every spark of life we hold

  Within ourselves,

  we must fan

  into a full flame that will

  Find the dry, crusty ground

  of a parched soul to be

  fertile ground in which to plant

  A self-multiplying crop of life,

  But for every crop and new life,

  first something old must die,

  And I am willing for that something

  To be everything I am.

  I will know I have succeeded as a person

  As an artist, as a human being

  When I have nothing left to give;

  When every poem, every story,

  every melody, every song has been written;

  When every photograph has been taken and hung,

  When my ideas have all been brought to fruition,

  When I sit down to write, and find

  That the pen of creativity has run dry,

  When the vitality of ink, my blood,

  has been used up, when it has dried up,

  and I find myself there, empty,

  bereft of talent and ideas;

  When I have nothing left to give,

  I will be satisfied.

  Because I don’t want to look back

  And think that I could’ve given more;

  I could’ve pushed harder,

  bent the universe just a bit further,

  into a better shape, as I see it;

  I will keep giving away this

  living water

  To thirsty mouths

  Until, at last,

  the faucet runs dry

  And I am empty;

  pure, clean, with

  nothing left to give;

  poured out, used up,

  Even the dust of death

  becoming a fertilizer

  for the future.

  So help me God, I will not die

 
Until the faucet has run dry.

  DISABUSED NOTIONS

  When I was six I was sure I would become an astronaut.

  I would invent things and become President.

  When I was nine I was sure I would design Legos all day.

  I would be the next Willy Wonka, the King of sweet teeth.

  When I turned ten I learned about death and suffering.

  It turns out Santa’s not real, or the Easter bunny, and more.

  Disillusion hit me like a six thousand pound truck

  Going seventy five in a fifty zone, catastrophic.

  All my childhood dreams, filled with hope and optimism

  Dissipated like a fog under the pressure of mid-day sun

  Beating down with a stern harshness and unflinching heat

  Cauterizing these fresh wounds on my soul with a fierce fire.

  There’s a reason stories of hope are called stories;

  The fiction label should be a bit more pronounced, I think.

  I used to look forward to freedoms and making it big;

  Now I just hope to make ends meet.

  Disabused of all these notions of hope

  What can you attain when your spirit’s broke?

  BENDING THE UNIVERSE

  Steve Jobs said he wanted

  To put a dent in the universe.

  That is a statement that has inspired me

  To want to bend it to my will.

  People often ask me, do you want

  To be the next Steve Jobs?

  The next Walt Disney?

  The next Einstein?

  The next… and the list goes on.

  No, no I do not.

  I don’t want to be ‘the next’ anybody.

  But I will tell you one thing.

  I’m going to bend this universe of ours

  To such an incredible extent

  That children in the future

  Looking upon the stars to see their futures

  Will say they want to be

  ‘the next’ me.

  I hold no illusions as to my genius

  Or lack thereof, in truth,

  But I know anything is in reach

  To those willing to go to any lengths

  To get what they want.

  Everest is a pebble, Marianas is a dip;

  Compared to the sheer magnitude

  Of the Universe, with its

  Hundreds upon hundreds

  of billions upon billions

  of galaxies;

  And with that perspective,

  Do not take it lightly

  When I say,

  I will do whatever it takes

  To get what I want.

  I will bend the entire universe

  If I have to

  I will go to every length

  If necessary

  To mold this existence