A Path of a Different Sort

It has been a rough week my friends. I'm blocked on my revisions of chapter one, I'm concerned about the massive wild fires keeping me from making it home this weekend to see my family and Mumford and Sons, and I'm still recovering from the sample fat-burner I took yesterday that made me feel like a cracked out ninja (it was awesome).

The writer's block is frustrating as ever, but I know it's all because I've put too much pressure on myself to write something awesome, and the moment I relax and tell myself to have fun with it, inspiration will come pouring out. I'm hoping my solo, 10 hour car ride through the desert will mellow out my brain.

For today's creative writing post, I am going to share with you a poem I wrote for the joke of a creative writing class I took my senior year in high school. The assignment was to create a poem inspired by Dante's Inferno and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Elliot. I took on the challenge, and I'm quite pleased with the  result. I was a very angry child in high school, so you'll forgive the jaded darkness, I hope. *Disclaimer* I in no way consider myself a poet.

I give you, The Path

The Path

Come with me and I shall reveal
All the truths and thoughts and realities one should feel
Half asleep in a nightmare between worlds
I shall guide you through the maze
Past the corners where a soul stays
When it reaches the point of no return
The empty, forlorn houses no longer a concern
Monuments of modern men
So take my hand and we shall begin
Our walk down the road not taken
Few have seen it
Fewer believe it.

      Knowledge has taken second place
      For the sake of a smile upon a face.

Shadows flow thick like oil
Oozing down the walls like oil,
Stretching over everything in sight
Daring synthetic light to recoil.
Its black hand clenches all aspects of life
Contaminating hope
Tightens around the innocent neck like a rope.

There will be time, then
To relive past mistakes
To drench yourself in shadows of oil
And watch your great demise uncoil.
Yes, there is always time
To prepare your lies and sharpen your knives
To attach the mask of ignorance
For what's more important than fitting in
To your predetermined place?

    Knowledge has taken second place
    For the sake of a smile upon a face.

I shall fly past all the warning signs
And be mocked my own inexperience
Ashamed of the only genuine smile
To be touched by youthful excitement for a while.
(Remember the phrase: "We are so much the same.")
See the routines laid out to please another
Wasted hours to catch attention and hold it there.
(Remember the phrase: "How's my make up how's my hair?")
What do they say
Behind my back?
They don't know me
Or perhaps they know me better than myself.

For I have seen their faces blurred into one-
A multitude of treacheries molded into one treacherous move.
I had known better and stayed tight to my well known groove
But from the blur of faces one should appear
To be different, to stand out, to be inescapably clear.
      I was caught in his snare.

I had known them for what they were
Had myself been a victim of their scrutinizing gaze
Yielded angrily to their masses
Unwillfully to their opinions I had and would refer.
They gain their way by falsely kissing asses.
I knew the consequences but still fell victim to their ways
    I was caught in his snare.

And the moments took me obliviously-
Nothing else mattered so long as he was with me,
The color green associating itself with his face,
Became a permanent tennant in my head.
Did not try to stop it but encouraged it instead
Loved it, consumed it and left it for dead.

      And deep down inside I knew this

 Held myself higher than all the rest

      Understood what others did not...
       Anything worthwhile shatters like glass
      What the hell ever happened to class?

And then before me the face blurred.
The beautiful, welcoming smile
Turned into
A demonic snarl in the dark, shadowy oil
Shook my world apart
Ripped out my beating heart
Broke before me from his angelic mold
While I sat trembling, starting up
My strength had vanished and all I saw was the truth-
I gave it all up
For the ignorance of youth

And now I walk past all the people I thought I knew
Their eyes blankly staring, not seeing you
When you call out to them they vacantly look at you
There is no recognition
You recieve no attention
You're not even there
Just a ghost, merely air.

Let us travel further,
Oh yes, you will see
All the needle thin girls with fake smiles, false souls
How they bend and twist like puppets on a string
To the delight of the ruined boys
Take sips of poison to skew what you see
Become someone else
Who you never wanted to be.

Past the innocents whose lives tainted by desire
Blow forever in the winds
Past the leeches the murderers and the liar
That led you here
Be amidst the traitors
Watch the knife in your back sink further
And there you see eternity staring
Directly back at thee.

And when you return, what shall you say?
Will you remember what you've witnessed?
Will you change your ways with the best of intentions?

Or will you simply lay down

And let it happen

Your hopes and dreams severely dampened

Fall into your fears and drown.