The One

It's seven in the morning and I'm already regretting writing this blog post at the last minute. For real, I need to start writing these on like a Sunday afternoon or something because, this is honestly just getting out of hand. On a real though, writing this weeks poem came rather easy to me. Maybe that's a good thing because, my brain usually doesn't function properly until 9 or 10 o clock. I've always kind of been that guy who's wondered what will my future be like. What will become of my relationship status five or ten years from now? I came to realize that I shouldn't worry about such things. Usually things such as this will not necessarily work themselves out but they will happen eventually. I just have to keep being aware of my surroundings. I just have to keep doing my own thing right now. I need to focus on my schooling, finding a job I don't hate, and keeping up my image. Sorry, I had to slip that last one in there.

I've always believed that there is someone for almost everyone. Now, I say almost because, honestly some people just aren't meant to be in a serious relationship. By that I mean, they're either bat shit crazy or they look similar to a potato. In the back of my mind, I've always kind of thought that when you're in a relationship with someone, you're either going to break up with that person or stay together and one day hopefully get married. It's a sad thing to think but that's the reality of relationships nowadays. 

I titled this poem "The One" for obvious reasons. I wrote about how once in your life you encounter someone who'll may your wildest dreams come true and no it's not Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. More importantly though, I wrote this poem in the hope that one day, I'll meet someone who will not only accept me for me but can also actually tolerate my sarcastic self. This weeks poem is definitely in my top five favorite that I've written. I hope you like it y'all.

                            “The One”

I truly believe,

Once in your life,

You find someone that can completely turn your life around,

You tell of hopes for the future,

Dreams that will never come to fruition,

Goals that will never be reached,

All of the constant disappointments life throws at you,

You need not worry about what they’ll think of you because they love you,

For whom you are,

The only thing you’re worried about,

Is letting them walk out of your life,

Forever,

In the back of your mind,

You’re wondering if such a wonderful thing could happen twice,

You’re wondering if there’s actually a person that can lighten up your whole world,

As much as this person does now,

But the one thing that keeps you going,

Is knowing that,

They’re yours,

Knowing they’re part of your life,

Right here,

Right now.                        

Distant Memory

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my past. More specifically, my most recent ex-girlfriend. The main reason for this or at least I think the main reason I have been thinking about her so much lately can mainly be attributed to the fact that her and I have a lot of unfinished business. Our relationship ended so abruptly that I just couldn't really process what was really going on at the time. As soon as I received the text on that dreadful day, my heart just sank. It was as if my whole body went numb. Someone could have literally punched me in the face and I would have welcomed it. At least when you're getting punched in the face you're semi prepared for how painful it's going to be. Well, unless you're getting punched by a prime Mike Tyson. Then you're pretty much screwed. To numb the pain, I did what any guy would do in my situation. I simply ignored it as a whole. Now that in itself, just created another barrier within myself. One way or another, you're going to have to face the problem eventually. One day, you have to realize that it's over and at that time, I just wasn't ready to confront that awful reality.

It's been almost a year since my ex and I have broken up but the wounds still seem fresh. You'd think time would start to do its thing and start healing some wounds. I guess, I'll just have to wait a bit longer for that to occur. One thing, I felt that I could do to really try and get at least a little bit of closure to the situation was to drown myself in poetry. I needed to find a way to revisit what I felt that day, capture how serious the situation actually was, and finally put an end to that chapter in my life. In my heart, I knew it was way past due in getting over my ex but that's what happens when you simply don't deal with the problem up front. Usually, I just ignore it until it goes away and I really need to stop doing that. In recent years though, it has almost become a way of life for me. I'm actually a super chill guy. I joke around probably 90 percent of the time and I try not to take life too seriously. Maybe that's been my problem all along. Maybe just maybe, I need to start confronting the reality that ignoring your problems is not the best way of resolving them.

The poem that I've written is in fact one of my personal favorites. It took me about two hours to write. The only reason it took so long was because, I kept on goofing off. I like to think of myself as being an above average multitasker but in reality I actually suck. Yes, you heard it from the horses mouth. Sometimes even I tend to take on more than I can actually handle. Some of those things that kept me from finishing this poem sooner were trying to actually write the poem, eating, surfing social media, and even texting my buddy that I couldn't come to his party and get "Turnt" because I was stuck inside writing poetry. After which he replied with a full paragraph containing nothing but 

crying with laughter emoji's. Anyways, here's my poem. Hope you appreciate it as much as I do. 

            

                       “Distant Memory”

I loved you once,
But now it seems you’re nothing,
Nothing more than a distant memory,
In time,
You’ll slip into the back of my mind,
Until the day I think back,
And wonder what it would be like,
If only for a second,
To see your face once more,
I remember those lips,
That crooked smile,
Those brown eyes,
I've seen none other, 
But thinking back,
Is all I’ll ever be able to do,
You’re nothing more than a distant memory,
And that’s all you’ll ever be.

It's Not Over

For this weeks poem, I decided to change things up a little bit. I know that I'm usually funny and what not but this particular topic is most certainly no joke. Far from it as a matter of fact. The issue that I'm going to be talking about is depression and how it effects our everyday lives. I wanted to first start off by saying that to any of you suffering from any sort of depression, that I'm here for you. Seriously, if you ever need someone to talk to just hit me up. I'd be more than happy to help. As someone who has suffered in the past from depression, I can certainly identify with most. I also know how difficult it is to live in silence along with that constant struggle swelling up inside of you. That feeling of just utter loneliness. Not that long ago, when a series of short lived flings went sour back to back for me, I sank into a deep depression. I felt as if life was a joke and I was the only one not in on the gag. What was wrong with me? Time and time again, I found myself asking that very same question. I came to realize that I was my own worst enemy. Depression can destroy you from the inside but only if you let it.

Knowing that I was cast with a huge challenge in writing a poem that fully captured the magnitude of how serious this illness really is, I pondered for quite a long time. It was so long that it seemed I might not ever start this poem. I almost decided to switch topics. After hours of thinking, my stroke of genius finally hit and I started writing the poem. I knew in my heart that I needed to make this poem count. I had to return myself to that place in my life where I absolutely had no will to do anything. Looking back though, I wouldn't trade my life that I have now for anything. If depression had never entered my life, I would not be where I am today. I wouldn't have the friends and the relationship with my family that I have now. Everything that has happened to me in the past has happened for a reason. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't change a thing. I mean, if I can overcome depression, what else can really phase me now? I know that I've kept you waiting long enough so this week's poem is below. Hopefully you appreciate it because, it took me forever to write.

                                      “It’s Not Over”

Loneliness is only temporary,

                        You aren't your own best friend,

                        Whether you know it or not,

                        People do care,                                                

                        It’s not over,

                        You’re worth more than you think,

                        Don’t let the sadness overtake you,

                        Reach out,

                        You are your own worst enemy,

                        That much is clear,

                        But you have to fight it,

                        It’s not over,

                        Live your life,

                        Believe me when I say,

                        It gets better,

                        Dig deep and hold on,

You’re not alone,

                        It’s not over,

                        Not yet,

                        Not yet.

First Love

Everyone has that one person in their lives. Everyone has a first love. It's something we all live and deal with. The fact of the matter is this. That person, however you feel about them, they've changed you in more ways than one. They taught you something. Something that cannot so easily be forgotten. For me, that something was dealing with traumatic stress and disappointment all at once. You could say, it was an experience to say the least.  Looking back now though, I'm not even the same person that I was. Maybe that's a good thing. Why be the same person your whole life? Why would you want to not change and become stagnant? I guess that's the beauty of having a first love. At that time, you experience plenty of firsts. Your first kiss, your first date, and even your first sexual experience. It's kind of beautiful when you think about it really. Although most first loves may just become nothing more than a distant memory, we can all take something from each of our experiences.

My inspiration for writing this poem obviously stemmed from my experiences with my first love however, I found it quite difficult to try and describe how important one's first love truly is. I thought for a while and I finally came to the conclusion that having a first love is like a beautiful tragedy. It's pretty much destined to fail but those memories that you made with that person will stick with you forever. You could be 85 years old and you could still think back to that time when you looked into your crushes eyes for the very first time, put your hands on her waist, and kissed her oh so passionately. In that moment, you felt complete. There's no better feeling than the feeling of being wanted by another. It's truly something that I will never forget.

As far as actually writing this poem, it literally took me maybe ten minutes at most. I actually wrote this on the treadmill at the gym because why the hell not right? No, but seriously it really made the time fly by fast. You all should try it sometime. It's quite the stress reliever. Anyways, this poem was dedicated to my first love whose name I will not mention because, I don't want any of you to think I'm shady. Well, I know the anticipation has been getting to you so without any further of due, here is this weeks poem.

                                        “First Love”

Once in your life,
You come across someone,
Someone that will change your life,
Someone who’ll you’ll come to adore,
And someone you might hate,
But in the end, 
They’ll always be your first love, 
You could move away, 
Change your phone number, 
You could even change your name,
But one thing will remain the same,
That person,
However you may feel about them, 
They've made their mark, 
They were your first kiss, 
They were your first regret, 
They were your first love.

A Reluctant Hero

One thing people usually don't realize about me is, that I'm secretly a huge nerd. However, I'm not your typical kind of nerd. I'm a superhero kind of nerd. As far as choosing a side in the superhero universe goes, I've always been Batman's number one fan. I guess, you could say I'm a DC fan boy but I tend to think of myself as being a fan of both DC and Marvel. They both have some pretty stellar characters. I mean, in DC you have Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg, and Green Arrow. Then you have Marvel who has Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, Wolverine, Spiderman, and Deadpool. Both universes have some stellar characters. There's no denying that.

Like I said before though, Batman has always been my favorite superhero because, he's not really super if you will. He has no powers. He's just awesome because, he can hang with all of the most powerful superheros in the universe without even having a single power. To me, that just screams clutch. For all of those who aren't familiar with the word clutch, it means cool. Get with the times people. As the great Bob Dylan once said, "Oh the times, they are a changin". 

My inspiration for writing this weeks poem stems from Batman being my favorite superhero. It's actually a poem I've had in my mind for quite some time. I've just never really had the nerve to put it down on pen and paper until now. Well, in this case, typing words and having them appear onto my laptop screen. I spent a good hour or so trying to figure out how on earth I was going to start the poem. It was actually a lot more difficult than I originally thought it was going to be. However, once all was said and done, I thought it was almost perfect. I just needed an awesome title. I thought for a while and I finally came to the conclusion that I would title this poem "A Reluctant Hero" because, that's exactly what Batman is. He doesn't have to save the city, he just feels the need to. Well, I think I'm almost at 400 words now, so here's my poem! Hold onto your seats or whatever you're sitting on. 

                  
                  “A Reluctant Hero”

            A hero can be anyone,            

There’s something really satisfying about that,

            A reluctant hero,

            Someone who knows that time is limited,

            Someone who knows that one day,

They’ll forever have to hang up their mask,

Someone who knows that one day;

They won’t be able to protect the ones they've tried so hard to keep safe,

            So they’ll fade into obscurity,

            Waiting,

Waiting to answer the call once more,

            To rise to the occasion,

            To fight injustice,

            To silence the doubters,

            To protect the innocent once more,

            One day,

One day.

Losing Hope

The new poem that I have written over the course of the last week is one that I do in fact take great pride in. I entitled the poem "Losing Hope" and here's why. Over the course of the past week, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking. All that I've been able to think of are the horrid events happening in  Ferguson and the terrorist group known as Isis beheading a U.S. journalist. I myself, have found these two events to be some of the worst black eyes that America has had to deal with in quite some time. The only thing that I can even recall being worse than these two events is the horrific nightmare that was the September eleventh attacks on the The World Trade Center. However, like I said before, the two main contributing factors in writing this were the events currently happening in Ferguson and the terrorist group Isis and that is primarily what I'm going to stick to here.

Realizing that I had plenty to write about here, I immediately thought that this poem would be one of the easier things to write about. What's funny is that I could have never been more wrong. Knowing that I needed to make sure the poem was detailed and written well enough, I was clearly a bit nervous in making it absolutely perfect. For hours, I stared at a blank screen wondering how long my stroke of genius would take to come into effect. Then finally it hit me. As soon as I started writing, I knew that this was going to be one of my better writings as a whole. Not only was the title pretty strong, but I also had plenty of material to work with.

Once I was finished, I thought to myself, "Man, I'm good". I then made myself a cup of coffee, worked on about five years of homework, and called it a day. However, once I realized that I forgot to actually write my blog post for the week, I quickly decided to get a quick start on it before class. I guess, I was just so focused on writing about my poem that I actually forgot to write about the blog post itself. It's a good thing I have a semi good memory or I would have been in quite the predicament. Since I'm such a nice guy, I've also decided to include the actual poem I wrote as well, enjoy.

                              “Losing Hope”

I used to believe in people,

I used to believe that deep down everyone had some good inside of them,

I used to believe that there was hope,

I thought maybe one day,

We could all be at peace,

Sadly,

I was terribly wrong,

I've come to the realization that some people,

Just want to watch the world burn,

There will always be conflict,

It doesn't matter what we do,

To be honest,

I lost faith in humanity a long time ago,

You can’t truly understand the horrors of the human society until you've witnessed it for yourself,

Maybe I’m losing hope,

Maybe I’m holding onto something that just isn't a possibility anymore,

One day,

Maybe you’ll understand,

When the world is ashes & you find yourself with no one to blame but all of us,

I hope you’re as content with the idea as I am.

The Beginning of Something Great

I chose to write about a new poem that I've written each week because, in recent years it has actually become one of my favorite things to do in my spare time. Not that I want to sound any less macho but I tend to think of writing poetry as an in depth emotional expression of one's inner self. A guy like me  does need some kind of hobby besides being exceptionally handsome, am I right? As far as how I got started writing poetry, it's kind of a funny story. I was in my senior year of high school and if I remember correctly it was also my first semester of high school that year. I had gone down to the first floor to talk to my school counselor in order to make sure I was registered early for some super easy classes. What I didn't expect was that one of the gym classes I was registered for was actually full. I had two classes to choose from after that. I had to choose from either Spanish or Creative writing. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to learn how to speak a foreign language but I wasn't about to spend my last year of high school trying to learn a new language that I honestly had no intention on really learning. That's when I made the decision to go ahead and give the whole Creative writing class a shot. How hard could it really be? 

My teacher's name was Mr. Vincent and I had never actually met him in person before. All I really knew of him was that he was the voice of Elmer Engel Stadium. Basically, he was the announcer of the football games at Bay City Central High School. When I first met him, I imagined him being a bit taller considering his god like voice but he was only about 5'7'' and weighed about 180 lbs. I actually mentioned this to him and he replied with "That's what everybody says when they first meet me!" Finally, it came time for Mr. Vincent to give us our first project of the semester. I was expecting to write a short story or something easy. As soon as he said the word poetry, I instantly thought "How macho". He instructed us that we had to write twelve poems that were up close and personal. I actually dreaded the assignment because, I had no idea how I would even start it. After hours of just starring at a blank screen something just clicked. I finally let my inner wall of masculinity down and proceeded to write about my past experiences. I probably didn't realize it at the time but that's the moment when poetry became a part of my life.