Poem 77
I’ve carried with your memory
Longer than I’d care to admit
I thought with time
I’d forget you
Instead, you’ve rooted yourself
In the foundation of my very being
To the point
That I will carry you to my last breath
Even then I’m afraid
I’ll carry you
Wherever I go after
77.2024 #poem #memory
Poem 76
What do I have to give
So when I leave here
I can say
I didn’t leave anything behind?
Everything
76.2024 #poem #give #life
Poem 75
Growing up
I learned real quick
To not make a ruckus;
To not rock the boat
Or call undue attention
To myself
I was already
Emotionally neglected
Not quite abandoned
But that’s how I felt
I felt like a nuisance
But I could never figure out why
My young mind
Hadn’t conceived yet
That some people
Are just assholes
And want to bully others
I craved attention
But I hated that
The underlying risk
Was some kind of abuse
Jesus Christ
Pat Benetar was right
Hell is for Children
Those kinds of conditions
Imprinted on me a quiet resilience
That helped me
Bear humiliations
More than I can remember
Probably a bunch
I just straight up repressed
Was there ever a turning point?
Shit I feel like I’m still going
Through the same things
But 10x’d
The least I can do
Is not take out
My hurt and anger onto the world
But sometimes I have
I’m not perfect
So how have I been able
To make it this whole time?
I disassociate a lot
But I became a writer
These attacks, man
A freaking lifetime of
Having the fortress of my soul
Beseiged by would be conquerors
Who would make me their
Lackey, goon, minion, victim
Henchmen, stooge, patsy
Reason for their failure
All fail because they can’t get into my mind
I mean, yeah
I’ve been made to cry
Made to feel like I shouldn’t be alive
But somehow those ideas don’t stick
That don’t mean I don’t feel bad
I just don’t buy into their bullshit
The lies about me they want me to believe
So they can treat me less than
And take away my dignity
Dignity is the only thing I have
That I don’t have to justify
Through my actions and achievements
And I will fight to protect it
But it’s all good
I’m a writer and a poet
I ain’t going nowhere
I’ll fight you with words
I’ll fight you with my ideas
I’ll fight you with my humor
Or let’s not fight at all
Let’s treat each other with dignity
At the very least
Respect was invented to cover the place where love should be – Leo Tolstoy
75.2024 #people #poem #hurt #dignity #respect #childhood #neglect
Poem 74
I’m freaking weird
I wish I could fit in
But I don’t even know
What that means anymore
I’m not even a square peg
I’m one of those screws
With reverse threads
That are totally not intuitive
But which trick you into thinking
Are like any other standard screw
And which you forget about
Until you have to remove them
And you have a tough time
I feel like my biggest enemy is me
And my stubborn refusal
To be nothing except myself
Usually, and I know
I speak in generalizations a lot
Not great for an out of work
Political Scientist and Historian
But I’ve had a lot of life experiences
Where me “fitting in”
Just means submitting to someone
With more power
And submission is always about
Making yourself smaller
To fit someone’s idea of you
That’s what bullying is:
Someone with the power to hurt you
Coerces you to serving them
How they see fit
That shit ain’t ever going away
It’s one to one war, man
Mano a mano, hermano
But they don’t teach you that in schools
What did the Prussian general
Carl Von Clauseweitz say
War is the continuation of politics
By other means
Jesus Christ was he right
Office politics
Theater politics
Family politics
It’s all a struggle for power
Would it surprise you
That I considered being a diplomat
For about 18 months
When I was in college
Would it surprise you
That I identify more with supervillains
Like Magneto
Than super heroes
Not because I’m evil or inherently bad
But because I get it
You hurt the people I love
I’m going to want vengeance
Easy as that
I mean but that’s childish
I’m now at the point
Where I’m like
Just because I was hurt
Doesn’t mean I have license to hurt others
At the same time
If you come at me with bad intentions
I’m going to defend myself
I don’t want to be a victim
Or a victimizer
I just want to be cool with everyone
And do things I like to do
And heal all this trauma
Before I die
However, I will never shrink
To fit someone’s expectations of me
Never again
74.2014 #poem #fittingin #submission #conforming #power #politics #trauna #bully #heal
Poem 73
I meet you in other people
And I stop myself
This is projecting
This is imprinting
This is asking this person
To be you
And it never works
And I bet you do it too
You’re not coming back
I’m not going to ask for forgiveness
Too proud, too stubborn
We were more common
Than we knew
I miss you
But not at the price
Of my self respect
73.2024 #poem #love #relationships
Poem 72
I like how
We’ve replaced the word
Patterns
With the word
Algorithms
It’s like patterns
Show me who I am
And algorithms
Tell me who I am
I don’t know if
I always like
My algorithms though
My YouTube algorithm specifically
Sometimes it suggests things
That make me uncomfortable
But which it believes
I will enjoy
Here’s a video of
Something dude playing bass
Which I like because I play bass
Followed by a ferrier
Trimming a horse’s hoove
Which is oddly soothing
Followed by an ad
For Better Health
Which are surprisingly
Culturally sensitive
While being personally invasive
Kinda like those
Targeted daytime TV ads
Back in the day
For unemployed people
Watching Maury Povich
On their mom’s couch
Followed by an ad
For a mushroom based
Antidepressant alternative
For people struggling to self actualize
Because of their ADHD
And not because of capitalism
It seems my YouTube algorithm
Thanks I need therapy
For my broken soul
And watered down psychedelics
For my addled brain*
*Damn, I just got why they call it Adderall
Followed by a video of
Job fails and OSHA violations
Which are tragicomic
And get sadder
The deeper you think about it
But I’m going to binge it
Capped by a video
Of some guy sniping rats
On his farm
Which I don’t watch
But am bothered
That it was suggested to me
How do I hack
My YouTube algorithm
Which arguably knows me
Better than I know myself
To NOT suggest videos
Of some guy in Oklahoma
Sniping rats with night vision
I literally have to go watch
A bunch of random videos
In other categories
To recalibrate my YouTube algorithm
To not show me stuff like that
I know about breaking patterns
But how do I break my YouTube algorithm
Which clearly believes
I’m the kind of person
Who has latent fascist tendencies
First, it’s sniping rats
Then it’s videos of how
Critical Race Theory
Will be the downfall of
The American Empire
And bite size Jordan Peterson content
On how to be a man
I just want to disassociate
Isn’t that my God given right
As a citizen born on American soil?
At least that’s what a YouTube video told me
72.2024 #poem #humor #satire #pattern #youtube #algorithm
Poem 71
An antique store
Is a thrift store museum
Where the only meaning
Any of the objects have
Is whatever significance
You project onto them
Which is always
Some sort of saudade¹
You can’t pinpoint
But which antique stores
Always seem to elicit
¹Saudade being
The Brazilian idea of
Longing for something
That doesn’t exist anymore
A conscious awareness
That makes life sad and happy
At the same time²
²It’s more than that
But I think you have to be
A Brazilian in Brazil
To know how serious
And not serious
The vibe is
The past in the antique store is alive
While being dead outside
What I feel in these spaces
Is something I can’t feel anywhere else
I feel like I’ve lost something
Something beyond
The cliched innocence
And longing for yesteryear
But isn’t that something
We all want back?
What’s that saying⁴
That an old soul
Is just someone who received
A lot of childhood trauma
⁴I think this idea is too new
To be a saying
But it sounds more poetic
Than saying
What’s that idea
Currently being debunked
About Childhood trauma
Being the reason for
Young people labeled as old souls
As opposed to some sort
Of inherited wisdom during a time
Of adolescent whimsy?
What I wouldn’t do for some
Adolescent whimsy right about now
I bet you if I could put
Adolescent whimsy in a bottle
And call it something
Cool and sexy like Saudade
I’d make a million dollars
Saudade
Makes You Young Again
Without Turning Back The Clock
By Fernando
The creator of Old Soul
And Generational Trauma
At a Walgreens near you
71.2024 #poem #antique #projection #oldsoul #saudade #healing #writer #chuckklosterman #culture #essay #critic
Poem 70
I got claustrophobia
From growing up
In a small, Mexican Catholic school
Working class immigrant community
Where everyone
Knows your name
Your brother’s name
Your sister’s name
Your dad
What he does
Where’s he from
Where he’s not from
Your mom (but not as much)
But it’s always like that
Everyone knows everything
About everyone
And no one questions it
Because people (parents) want this
It’s literally “It takes a village” in effect
For the most part
It wasn’t bad
And God bless all these people
Even the a$$holes
But like (me)
I wasn’t designed to
Stay in the same place
For a long time
But sometimes I make the mistake
Of staying in the same place
For a long time
I know I’ve scratched people
With the frayed edges
Of the overgrown husk of a former self
I’m too afraid to abandon
I’ve committed
Social faux pas
After social faux pas
By being an oblivious dick
(I can be a hard person to love)
I loved my huge public high school
For the fact that for the first time in life
I could blend in and be anonymous
It was beautiful to be a stranger
To have privacy among the throng of youth
Dying to be noticed
But to not be so obvious about it
As to be labeled uncool
But I still got that fear of
Small, enclosed spaces
That shit doesn’t go away
Also, I seem to keep finding these spaces
Am I just attracted to places
Where everyone knows your name
Am I just repeating patterns
And re-creating these spaces
Because I haven’t healed
A specific childhood trauma?
One constant of life is
That people will find you
You know
You can run away
From everyone you know
And you’ll just find new people
To run away from later
70.2024
#poem #community #identity #workingclass #youth #reflection
Poem 69
Am I in touch with
Past versions of myself?
No, not really
But I think I’m just
In the parlance of our times
A rebooted version
Of past Fernandos
The new Fernando
Is the same as the old Fernando
Same old self destructive patterns
Set in a contemporary backdrop
With trendy gimmicks
As underlying plotlines
With new friends and old alike
For me to playoff
Here are the 6 Types of Fernando Conflicts
Fernando vs Not Fernando
How is this person
Who is not me
Going to trigger me
Because of a values clash
And force me not to become
A smaller version of me
See the Fernando Vol.1, Issue 757-762 “Beware: Sheamus Sanchez!”
Fernando vs Self
How is Fernando
Not going to hate himself
More than he already does
See all of Fernando: The Post High School Years artwork by John Byrne
Fernando vs Nature
How do I explain to people
That hiking isn’t something you do
When you’re from the ghetto?
See, Fernando Climbs Mt.San Gregornio (Issue 276)
Fernando vs Society
Fernando tries to get a job
At various points of his life
Who knew unemployment
Would be one of my biggest super villains
See My Life
Fernando vs Technology
How am I going to squeeze
4 years of high school math
Into 2 semesters
And 1 summer session of community college
To transfer to a 4-year school
See Fernando: The Community College Years
Fernando vs Supernatural
How does Fernando tell people
He believes in ghosts
Without getting judged
When the people judging him
Believe in cryptocurrency
See Fernando #1069
I wonder what whacky adventures
My unhealed patterns
Will get me into next!
You can write letters to Fernando
And we’ll publish them in our monthly
Ferngrams section
Where you will win a no-prize!
69.2024 #poem #comics #patterns #conflict #typesofconflict #hero
Poem 68
The beauty of
An awkward moment
Is that you don’t know
When it will happen
But you’ll remember it
For the rest of your life
That’s probably why
I’m a comedian
68.2014
#poem #awkward
thesisyphuslife 