Marshall
Me and my thoughts have been here before
But we gathered our instincts and discovered the door
Bury the boy in the enclosing grave
Thoughtfully dig through mistakes your young self made
When you know what you came back here for
And stop pretending these visits are staying away
Maybe believing in the something they claim
That’s when you are who you lost
You can drive across the road and trump up goodbye
But people remember here so you can’t pull off the lie
Hatred hides here to consume you like her
The depths of this hell created your curse
You never truly came back from the day you left
But the only means of making it out were thoughts put to death
Stronger, bitter, they taught you to fight
But your memory’s shot and you can’t remember what’s right
No one knows you or cares to do so anymore
You’re just the ambitious kid that escaped to explore
And in this town its not ok to be better or alive
They want to trap you in your sad mind and laugh as you die
HONK FOR ANDROIDS
Sometimes the fingers do the talking and my brains shuts off. So here I am just yapping and tip tapping away. In the background is Philip’s sweet and brilliant piano sounds. He is experiencing this for the first time and it is going smoothly. Nick breaks up the ice but to me it sounds like a repeated musical note. Everything is flowing around me. Am I really doing this right now because it wouldn’t surprise me to remember it as all a dream.
Where has the evening taken me? Time freeze. Resume.
I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into a nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it.
Titus Andronicus - Upon Viewing Brueghel’s “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus”
Nick, I noticed that right after I uploaded mine. And I enjoyed it.
Titus Andronicus - Titus Andronicus: No Future Part Two: The Day After No Future
When Life Continues
In my younger summers I would walk down the side of our busy road to Rosemary’s Gas Station. It was maybe all of a half mile down the road, but it was the perfect amount of time to enjoy the warm weather while still avoiding it’s exhaustion. Depending on the day I would make the trip as many as three times- in the morning I would buy corned beef hash, in the afternoon a bag of sour cream and onion chips and a pop, and at dinner time, if my mom was still preoccupied with her missions to save the world, anything I could cook frustration-free.
Often I would detour into the depths of the cemetery, which was across the street from my house. I had never known a cemetery to be inviting until we moved in across from this one. It’s dirt paths held a sense of purpose in their every foot print and tire track. I knew that others had come to pay respects to the deceased, just as I did then. My careless feet shuffled up clouds of dirt as I moved past countless rows of tombstones, each one marking the spot where, six feet deeper into the earth, someone’s body was coming to an end.
My destination appeared on the right hand side. To some one who didn’t know, it would have looked as though I had stopped in an insignificant area of the cemetery. No monumental tombstone marked the land; two less than ordinary slabs of polished granite held my gaze, on them both inscribed the surname, “McFarland.” Conner and his mother Sandy.
Reverentially, I moved closer. Focus on anything but the picture, I told myself. Already tears were making their steady descent down my cheeks. But it was impossible not to see the picture, and furthermore, I wanted to see it. Always I would remember Conner’s understanding face, his gentle blue eyes, his wavy blonde hair. A boy of 16, and that’s how I would remember him for the rest of my life. Death had come too early for such a kind-hearted soul. I knew it, but could do nothing about it.
Sprinkled around Conner’s grave were trinkets and miscellaneous items that in some way held significance to the people that had left them. My own contribution had been a CD by The Hollies; Conner and I had put together one of their songs for a talent show in eighth grade. It had been my first band.
Sandy, Conner’s mom, had preceded him in death by two years. I had been at that funeral as well, only on that occasion I had been with Conner. He used to take me with him to visit her grave; he always made sure that no one had tampered with any of the items left in her memory. Ever since Conner had passed away, I had assumed this duty. I checked Conner’s grave too.
The difficult part about going there was leaving. Every time I departed was another time I had to say goodbye to the remains of my best friend. There is no pain in life that scars the soul as grotesquely as the loss of a loved one. I stood clumsily to my feet and took one last inspecting glance at both graves. Fine. I struggled to tear myself away, but soon enough I had reached the edge of the cemetery and returned to the road.
I bought a bag of sour cream and onion chips and a coke at Rosemary’s. Life continues whether I want it to or not.
