Scotch or Freedom? - The Process

Drinking is a fun game.
I'll be honest, my favorite is scotch.
Because of it, I have so much fame;
Everyone loves to watch.
But I know one day someone will steal the show,
Leaving me with another loss to deal with.
At least this time the blood won't flow,
Leaving them with nothing but a smithed myth.

The scotch will take it all away,
Every single day.
But still I pity the cat,
which was turned into a mat.
Surely it was a nice rug,
But all of the dead bugs
Made me throw it to the dogs,
Those poor dogs who choke on the smog.

Maybe soon I'll toss this habit,
This endless addiction,
And no longer remain the sad rabbit.
But drinking is my affliction,
Nothing can free me,
But I think I've found a way.
It's simple, don't you see?
Death will never betray.

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This is the second poem of my collection, "The Process." I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time,

-Zero

The Agile Death - The Process

The cat's eyes shift from side to side,

Searching desperately for the predator

that was cause something to die

and rot in the intense temperature.

But from from this place I call home,

deep in the forest, I believe it was the core

of the rain-filled jungle that I roamed.

The cat was a tiger back then,

That much I remember.

The black stripes from a god's pen,

Resting upon the fur of ember.

Its teeth were large and strong;

its claws as well.

But an unknown threat sung its song,

A lullaby from Hell.

The cat I see now is not much unlike its jungle cousin

For it will meet the same end.

It seems like death comes in dozens,

And yet it has no friends.

I suppose death merely steals them away,

Taking them from us while we watch

So powerlessly, every single day.

So to take away the pain, we'll drink some scotch.

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This poem is an original and the first (currently) of a collection of mine called "The Process." I know the last line may seem a little out of place, but it will make more sense once I post the second poem. Anyways, I really ought to get some sleep so I am not too tired to work in class tomorrow.

So until next time,

-Zero

Wanderer's Journal #20

And so the insanity revolving around Marie-Lynn began again. Well maybe not insanity, but things were definitely not peaceful. It seemed like many men were doomed to fall for her and, before her death, this remained true. Some of them might have said that it was due, for many men were hurt. Perhaps she only kept me around because I had power and a strange world to escape to. Maybe I was her escape. I guess I'll never know. Either way, back when I saw her with Gerald I noticed one thing; she was being tormented by something. Of course I quickly went to find out what this thing was. The answer was simple and rather familiar. A dream was tormenting her.

In the dream, she came across a dark skinned girl, one much like the night-eyed girl. That dark skinned girl was killing a small child in a cemetery while a male cheered her on. The violent girl turned and saw Marie-Lynn and began chasing her. Marie-Lynn said she was terrified. The flame-headed girl ran to her nearby house, slamming the door closed as she entered. Marie-Lynn jolted awake. After I heard about the dark skinned girl, I immediately thought of the night-eyed girl. Suddenly I felt as if I was encouraging the brutal murder of the child, someone who could be representing a new beginning. I kept this to myself from her at first. Actually, I never told her directly. Maybe I should have headed the subconscious warning.

Marie-Lynn and I constantly met, sometimes in secret. It was strange. Meeting her almost felt wrong. I was a criminal running from my conscious and Marie-Lynn just so happened to be my conscious. It was as if it wasn't her that felt wrong, but something or someone else in my life that was. I may never understand exactly what felt wrong in that time of my life because I never asked and now it's too late.

Marie-Lynn disappeared once again a few days later. I knew she was safe, but I couldn't find her. I waited for her to return. I knew she would have to come home eventually. She did, but I was just leaving. It's funny how things can work out sometimes. Just as you're about to give up, you pull through. It's nice like the bliss stumbled on by man long ago, the bliss of ignorance. She was absolutely furious when I saw her. A slap across the face assured me that I was to blame. Marie-Lynn told me that she had been trying to enter my world for weeks and started blaming me for that. The truth was that I couldn't enter my world either. The ability came and went as it pleased and around that time, it tended not to care for me.

Marie-Lynn quickly pleaded me to leave with her. She was afraid of something. I should have been too.

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Frankly said, I'm not too fond of the small journal entries of the wanderer's journal (in comparison to the first few), but I do like them in themselves. Something funny about why I'm posting this all of a sudden is that for so long what ever happened in the wanderer's journal would be more or less based off real events. Once those real events stopped happening, the wanderer's journal sort of died. I realize now that it began as a figment of my imagination, and will continue to be one whether or not real events will inspire me.

-Zero

"It Feels So Good When I Stop"

Simply put, I've been slacking off.

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I've decided to include more than just my own creative writing on the blog. By that I mean I will possibly do reviews or essays instead of just creative writing. Sometimes I have a lot to say about something that I never get to let out. Here it goes.

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"It Feels So Good When I Stop" is a novel by Joe Pernice. Personally, I found that it was actually quite good. It's written very realistically to the character and can be quite vulgar because of that. It also tends to jump from time frame to time frame. I'll admit that this could get a little confusing, but it creates three separate stories that meet up by the end of the book. I find that it really shows the flow of consciousness that a person has, as certain memories will trigger other memories that seem almost unrelated. Anyways, enough with the general introduction of the novel. I will be speaking about the concept of intentional pain in order to feel relief from it. 

      This concept is introduced first by the title "It Feels So Good When I Stop," which refers to a joke told on page 240. The joke is about a "guy who keeps whacking himself over the head with a hammer."(240) A friend of his comes along and he replies "because it feels so good when I stop."(240) Once he stops, he feels good because he is relieved from the pain. This is much like the nameless character, who is seen repeating many things. One such thing would be his constant break ups with Jocelyn. Break ups equal pain; therefore, when the nameless character is on good terms with Jocelyn, when he stops, he feels the relief which he was searching for. This search, this addiction, for relief causes the nameless narrator to trap himself in painful cycles. An example of this is shown in the last paragraph of the novel, where the narrator says that he made it about a mile and a half "back toward East Falmouth, when a cop car coming in the opposite direction flashed me."(273) Not only is the nameless narrator heading back toward East Falmouth, which he had just left, but he was also stopped by a police officer for biking on the highway. This is the second time that he was stopped. It happens for the first time on page 108. Now, I may just be ranting, but it does seem very possible that he may just go through another cycle of pain so that he can stop. As a side note, this is also the only story line that does not end, but rather restarts. Back to the theme, Marie is another character in the story who wants that relief. She compares herself to the guy in the joke when she says, "it's sort of like that. I'm not the only one doing the hitting, but I'd take the relief just the same."(240) This shows her own desire for the relief, but also the intentional pain that she causes herself. A good example is the movie that she watches with the narrator that makes her cry, Burden of Dreams. This repetition of pain is shown by how many times she had watched it, "at least fifty times."(236) The movie becomes her hammer and makes it so that when she stops, she will finally get that relief. Anyways, I believe I've gone on long enough.

     The novel is called "It Feels So Good When I Stop" and that's that. Until next time,

-Zero