poetry

Focus on Foundations

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Meaningful progress everyday
Discipline and determination are the guides when I fall astray
When too afraid to follow fate, through the noise, then past the hate
Poised not to hesitate or simply crash and break at the smallest obstacle
A simple shake — I can handle it
I got it what it takes with new perspectives to pull me through
Harsh lessons from which I grew
Fresh breath to feel renewed as I breathe in fresh points of view
No longer living misconstrued, where my words are the dust
Of wind swept promises lost to rust and decay

No, no, no, I must not delay adaptations into this better me
To live and see dreams grow from ideas into reality
Until what’s in my mind turns into what I can see
Breaking the fallacy that wishes work without the work so easily
As it seems to be the opposite correlation
Wishes require hard work with consistent determination
Long term concerted effort of facing every challenge with smiles and elation
No longer escaping difficulty with distraction and mental displacement

—

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

Two Floors Back

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Cycle flow, up up up then down below
Sunk deep with all my doubt in tow, drowned so slow
In self defeating tendency consistently found at the crossroads
Of giving a fuck then choosing to let it go well before
Liberty bell’s final toll as it cracks and folds from the pressure
Of endless hate and self-censure of love to share
Held within with no chance to breath fresh air
No fate at ease to spread up there

All this time just played deadweight
So fake in tales, deteriorated when confronted with new challenge
Fell down, then lost mental balance
As I tripped falling into fallacy
Non-reality where I failed to act while seemingly chasing dreams

So this is a self decree
To step away, to run and flee from self betrayal, misery
Of solely living off impulse with no discipline nor honor
No regimented habits set in stone, no foundation, nor muscle on the bone
Now is the return of relearning how to put in the work to see myself grow
This is an internal decree not to forget the small choices, the little decisions
All the micro-habits which compound and cumulate into personal change
The abilities to conjure up digital wishes as if magic were at play
Because that’s why I first got into this game
To become a wizard of code creating new ways to pass the day
And just by chance, inspiring others to join and play

—
Photo by Samuel Zeller

Snapping Out of It

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Recording time lapses just to rewatch the time pass
With a different perspective
Velocity of mental recognition found in configurable frames per second
Processing minutes like seconds, hours like minutes
Months like days as if I’ve lost my ways to live in a moment
Lost my ways to honor this heartbeat, now facing a fresh defeat
Yet instead of giving up, I can own it
I can grow yet, throw self hate out the window in a fourth quarter comeback to find the next path, a new angle to move past
Internal walls which only aim to block my progress while deepening my falls
These voices that say

Stop, you can’t succeed
Just stop and be freed from the torment of breathing for dreams
But never getting there
You’ll soon be dead, so why all the fuss?
Slow, slow, slow it down, just get off the bus
Just kill yourself the slow way, binge eat to avoid your fate
Stay in your seat and feel the atrophy take
Let your muscles deteriorate and stay apathetic to your current state
And deflate your hopes and desires, simply accept this is the way to expire

To them I say,

Calm your mind and ease your thoughts because it’s okay to rest
Cause it’s okay to catch your breath
Then once you get it back move onto what’s next
Take an action, make a change, don’t stay frozen and stuck
And recognize that it’s strange to not have something worth dancing for
Worth fighting for
So dream, then build to life what your heart beats for, this is what your heartbeat’s for
To allocate more attention towards the stories of growth n evolution
Averting limited gaze from tempting illusions hoping to catch you in a haze
Get you mentally stuck in this inhibited phase
Where you rest a bit too long
Stuck replaying the same old song when you need to move on and let go
Onto to the next stage of life, let’s move on and flow like butterflies in flight
Flying through the breeze against all the wind’s might
And despite the current’s strength, always finding trust in the gravity of gratitude
The way love can reshape your body and attitude
Cause you’re still borderline morbidly obese and the weight still drags you down
As you drown in escaping the feud in your now
With smiles in consistency opposed to the apathy in frowns

—
Photo by Bryan Minear on Unsplash

Sober Days

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I let myself walk a little too slow, I let it all go
Internal inferno left to simmer on a low heat
Should have foreseen that staying stuck in comforting scenes
Would leave me struggling to feel excitement without these chemicals
Mind bending trails of fabricated journeys
Always yearning yet never learning, no growth, just time churning
Nothing but injustice to all this fire burning in personal wasteland

It’s time to face it, fam
I can be stronger than what I am today
Choices differing in a sober step toward
Reigning in recklessness paying it forward to my future self
An alley-oop to setup better mental health
Now that things are in the right perspective
Lessons present, proof that every time I committed to growth, I truly meant it
With this new chance to embrace moderation and craft these dreams in development

—
Photo by Joshua Earle

Gambler’s Manifesto

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Land’s End, San Francisco

Go play with the ups and downs, ride the waves of happy frowns
Writ to memory these lessons bound together in a set of truths, a set of rules
To spend your risk, you must not refuse embracing a gambler’s mindset the right way
Mathematically, not just easily swayed to empower emotion recklessly

Rule number one:
Expect to lose, then play to win
No outcome is guaranteed, so make sure you can weather
Whether destiny turns out for worse or for better
Never letting one bet err the long term
Yet still giving it your all, with no time churned on half worn dreams
Think it through, investing energy in all your scenes

Rule number two:
The result never fully defines you for you are so much more than where you placed your bets
What matters most is how you act next
So don’t let it consume you, your life is more complex than these series of bets
You must never forget the bigger picture, this particular happenstance

Rule number three:
Know you can stop at any time
At the drop of a line, no reason nor rhyme
No need for excuses, there’s nothing to find
It’s okay to let go and pivot towards peace of mind
You see it’s not healthy to let luck dictate moodswings
Even whilst earning potential winnings
Learning how to cope and handle the up and up is just as important as growing in the downswings

In summary:
Moderation, consideration, all these actions demonstrated
Is the too long, didn’t read of this self declaration
Defining some rules for this gambling phase’s duration

Day One, Again

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Day one on this road to rebirth
phoenix style, revived while this heart pumps infinite platelets
red discs with all the oxygen needed for me to exist
and resist once more against falling to depravity
ya know, it’s tiring to endlessly struggle against this anxiety
of knowing I’ll die then choose to stay living in pursuit of growth and changing
yet I see the news, and it’s breaking, always breaking
breaking my heart as I no longer know how to react or where to start
while all I do is continue to watch other lives fall apart
and I play the part of a hypocrite with pleasant words on the tongue
yet no action to mirror it, just nihilism in development
hellbent on letting past failures dictate current mindsets and perspectives

To me, I say:

You need to drop it
drop the sunk cost fallacy stopping you from change
don’t let that be, don’t let it be, it’s just a bias in your brain
let it go, you can drop this disdain for your past self, it’s just an image in your brain
just a passing phase before finally thinking sane
so what, you know, we’ve all made mistakes
it’s still alright, despite the outtakes so long as you never forget all at stake
never forget the love in your life and your chance to make something new
contribute to a perspective, conjure up a view
a different kind of pointed lens to shape the world’s affect on you

And let you grow like roses back in bloom
when not so long ago, we watched their doom,
wilted dead, no way to consume, no room for solar energy
you see, I cycle like this
I grow and then I bleed
fail to grasp, fail to heed to past lessons of the younger me
as if it were so easy to live and forget
refusing memories just to beget more mental hemorrhaging

Now I think back of Grandpa and miss telling him all this life I saw
how I can’t grapple with the religion I was raised with
because it just doesn’t make sense to me
even though my father continues to sometimes sing and preach

And then I remembered the connection between us was never about God
but this vibration, this musical sensation of sounds rising into chorus to higher elevations, serotonin sensations
as the unity of you and me all comes together in the sound waves, symphonic space
displacing this silent haze of our hours turning into days
with all these ancient ways encouraging a connective phase
what if there were a simpler way
more direct with less prophetic indiscretions, less corrupt intentions
cause most of organized religion I see seems to lack balance consistently
now I don’t mean to tread on what you believe, this is simply my perspective
how I feel and perceive what’s in front of me
I see galaxies so vast and free
impossibly deterministic, unpredictably mystically
unfathomably filled with dynamic trees all branching into these separate ideas and pieces of existence
and if I don’t stop to breathe, I’m sure to miss this chance to get up again
live and love again to build these dreams again

—

Photographer: Steve Halama

Next Steps

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Listen up as this is what’s happening now
You’re gonna take a seat and then write it out
All about the feels when you’re drowning out the shouting doubts
With the flip side, light tide, Sun-drum beat to fight away
Mentalities that choose to run and hide away
Instead you’ll choose to face how you feel today
No more anxiety idly churned to disarray

I know you’re scared enough to feel afraid to act
But you need to turn back
Don’t be long, just make it fast
To make it back on track towards recovery road’s path,
And pass by old perspectives only ever stuck in the past
Of yesterday, the love that grows and fades
Against the rising hate of fate to make or break
Procrastinated dreams of late
’n dissipate the tension against falling into flow
Taking deep breaths in, calm and slow
Remember, remember, how you’re not alone
Time and again, look how you’ve flown
Only soared past a thrown stone ‘cause of help from an other
Now rediscover love, like lightning and thunder
Motion picture wonder
Where the energy is found in next steps
No longer complicity aiding the morbidity statistics of chosen obesity
Heartbreaking tendencies
No, fuck that
You’ll welcome back the healthy math
Where emotional coping no longer equates to getting fat

—
Photographer: Mantas Hesthaven

Mental Pivot

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When your momentum halts
Come to me

When optimism fades to darkest despair
Reach out to me

When it hurts too much to bear past mistakes
You pick up that damn phone
And you talk to me

I’m right here, it’s my turn to help you breathe
To feel relieved, this love in motion to fill your need
Cause time’s run out, new patience must be freed from
Anxiety to atrophy, disaster trees bashing the masterpiece
Swing me down and pass the reasons to believe
In defeating low self-esteem
Dream up new ways of being, cause you’re stronger than you’re seeing
Mind out of focus, shift to freeing from self torment
A life abhorrent to have air in your lungs, yet hate in your veins
Shift to a change of pace, add some love to that look on your face
As you make haste to displace these rotten fates
Trajectories of pain which only serve to make waste
But it’s not too late, even though we both see the diabolical rate
Of self-destruction
Mentalities in flux when impulse dictates the next act
In need of discipline to strengthen back your consistency
It’s no mystery, just repeated history
This one-two step towards dreams of your visioning

—
Photographer: Seth Willingham

Existential Toolbox

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For a moment you’ve forgotten
This foundation you’ve built, hard fought, begotten
Through cloudy sunset, hazy moon sweat
Running past bitter regret, frozen fret
With oxygen left for one more breath
So don’t act as if you already wrote the story’s death

You don’t know the page to come
As the ink can run any which way
Mystery’s path lay between time, space
And the melody imposed leaving heartbeats exposed in synchronicity
Remember, remember, the sweetest of symphonies
How just the gentlest breeze carries gratitude
Reshaped attitude, sparking actions over platitudes
Passing over self-defeating moods in order to rope in good vibes
Filling your cup with the fuller half
The blissful math

—
Photographer: jesse orrico

Nice to Hear From You Again

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Your freshest album plays a reinvention of music
Recreation of momentary self expression
Absorbed in flow, this continuous show
To grow every dream like blades of grass tipped in frosted snow
Seasonal depression, no longer in tow
I remember now these feelings I used to know

Welcome
Welcome once more melody over tragedy
Footsteps on the path to be, taking me from land to sea
Naivety of crafting dreams
As I’m no longer passing these opportunities to live and breathe
Deep breath in, then relieve, shift in focus how to perceive
Life, death, and the time between

—
Photographer: James Pond