Sometimes, all the time.

i want to lay

in a pool of falling ash

like butterflies

and never know what hit me

when they come flying

at my sunken eyes

lay completely still

a thousand colors fade to

pitch black dots

and here i lay in silk

satin cheeks and

pitch black thoughts

You're comin' up roses everywhere you go.

Why is it that it is notorious among creative people to get addicted to heroin and kill themselves?

Some of the most brilliant musicians, artists, poets, and artistically great minds of our century were all-in-all stumbling drunks, dope fiends and depressed ass hermit mother fuckers.

While it makes absolutely no sense, it also makes complete sense. I can understand it because I was born with a creative brain.

Creative people are usually right-brained. They tend to think and process things differently than other people. While left-brained people tend to think more logically and analytically, right-brained people tend to be more imaginative, absent-minded. They tend to act on emotion and impulse. Not to say it's a black and white situation. Many people use both sides of their brain intertwined, but it is common when the right part of the brain is more dominant, to result in certain tendencies.

I may sound a little biased, but knowing how my own brain works I can completely understand why the majority of artistic geniuses of our time were all fucked up. It's a simple cycle that all boils down to one undeniable factor: inspiration.

Being inspired is a drug all on it's own. Nothing compares to it. When I am on a full-blown inspirational kick I could probably fucking fly. The problem is, inspiration can be futile. It comes when it damn well pleases, and for a lot of people it doesn't come nearly enough.

Result? Drug use. I'm not implying that I condone it, I'm simply being realistic. There is nothing more powerful than drugs to stimulate inspiration. Drugs can open up once unused parts of the brain. Thoughts and words and artistic flow we didn't even know we were capable of can all-of-a-sudden just "appear".

With the way my brain works, I am constantly looking for stimulation. In anything. I am somewhat level-headed, so it's not likely that I will ever hop on the heroin train. But I can see why people do. I doubt myself constantly. I often lack motivation and confidence, resulting in nothing getting done. And take it from me, when a creative person doesn't use their creativity they feel, in a sense, doomed. So what's the solution? Well, a couple drinks would sure help. Add money, fame, and infinite glorification into the mix and what's stopping you from self-medicating into an inspirational heavenly bliss?

Once this inspirational heavenly bliss is introduced, it becomes the key to success. The only way. And we all know what drugs lead to- nothing. After enough time, you become depressed trying to constantly reach that level of inspirational heavenly bliss. You enter relationships that end up failing, you feel like shit, and your fame either fades, or you end it all at the peak of your success. You stab yourself in the heart or get shot by your girlfriend.

With that said, it is clearly understandable how such amazing people fell to the wayside. Yet it is undeniably a cowardly and unfair use of talent. Talent is talent, with or without the use of substances. It can be a frustrating journey when you feel uninspired. It can feel hopeless. But it seems to me that you were given your brain for a reason, and it is supposed to work the way it does. I hate my brain sometimes. Sometimes I just wish I had more. Something else to say, something better. But the passion is still in me. It's in all of us. We just need to find other ways to channel it. I never want to end up literally drinking myself to death because I couldn't find any other way to be inspired. It seems like a cop-out.

I hope to God for myself, and the majority of other artistic people out there, that we can use our talents in good ways, ways that will benefit us without leaving us in a suicidal drug-induced fog at the end of our lives. I think it's completely possible. Though I may doubt myself at times, I know I am capable of making it in this world.

Need inspiration? Don't do drugs. Just get dumped. I wrote a lot of good songs.

:)

Things I will never understand.

- The game of football. Do not explain it to me, I'm not listening.

- Required P.E. classes. So let me get this straight, you're gonna feed us liquid cheese and deep-fried taquitos for lunch and then require us to run? You're telling me that my G.P.A. is partially based on whether or not I will participate in standing around ducking from rubber balls?

- Drama queens. If you would shut up, a lot more people would like you.

- History class. I will forget everything.

- Math class that exceeds 5th grade. No one gives a fuck.

- Non-alcoholic beer. You never drank it for the taste.

- Mike's Hard Lemonade. I like to have diarrhea and not get drunk too.

- Hummers. "I have a small penis".

- Money. We have enough trees to just print more, right? Let's do that.

- Toupees. A painfully obvious reminder of how sad your life has become.

- Child birth. How does this appeal to people.

- "Caffeine addiction". You made it up.

- The stringy shit on bananas and the white stuff on oranges. Also things with seeds. It is almost too much effort to eat you, seeing as how I have to de-grossify you before ingesting. Nanners are worth it. Oranges, not so much.

- The use of walnuts in cooking. Here's a good way to sabotage a good thing.

- Miley Cyrus. I just can't even find one good thing about you.

- Musicals. Let's get to the dialogue already, shall we.

Still life existence.

It's really weird to look at old pictures. Entire segments of a life can be summed up in one single photograph.

To other people it's just a still shot. A picture of you smiling. A picture of you in an unknown kitchen. A picture of a group of fifteen-year-old faces with beers in their hands. A picture of a friend who slipped from your grasp. A picture of a girl and a boy kissing.

To you, it's more than that. It's documentation of another time in your life, documentation of emotions that nobody could know but you. Beneath the still shot, the picture of you smiling, there are feelings. Memories. And sometimes, those fade too. With the way our brains work and the fact that we can only retain so much, it's odd to think that some things will just be forgotten. There is a beauty in that, in a sense.

Pictures reveal the passing of time. They are proof that seasons change, people change, feelings change. It's strange to look at a picture and feel nothing at all. A picture that used to mean so much to you, a two-second flash that symbolized a friendship or love that was so fresh at the time, now means nothing. It's strange when this picture becomes just another still shot of smiling faces. It's strange when this doesn't make you sad.

Photographs are vital. They are consumed with emotion. Whether good or bad, pictures are proof of our existence. Pictures are brief and fleeting shots of moments in our lives we felt it necessary to embrace and remember.

When I look back on old pictures, I am so thankful I took them. Nothing else in this world can sum up a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, or decade better. Nothing else can sum up a night you will never forget, a drunken stooper, an undeniably awkward stage, a loneliness, a first love, a second love, a precursor to a series of bad decisions, a glimpse into the heart of a person.

Nothing sums up the effects of the universe better than a picture.

Commonly made mistakes.

Common mistakes that have been made by me and other people:

- Plucking the SHIT out of your eyebrows. This is a tragic disaster that is made when one comes into contact with a pair of tweezers while on meth or while feeling really, really bad about themselves. It results in either no eyebrows, or a thin strand of stray hairs on one's forehead.

- Plucking the SHIT out of your eyebrows, then coming into contact with a brown eye pencil. When one plucks the shit out of their eyebrows, they realize a detrimental mistake has been made, resulting in two drawn-on lines of brown or black to replace what they once had.

- Muffin top. Sometimes folks are unaware of the fact that their midsection does not look like :This results in this unaware person wearing low-cut jeans and belly shirts.

- Orange face, white neck. I have made this mistake many times in my high school career. Bronzer can be a curse.

- Orange person. This mistake occurs when one works at a tanning salon and gets to tan for free every day. Just because you can, does not mean you should. This also occurs when one goes spray tanning, when one works at a gym, or when one lives on the Jersey Shore. Lastly, it occurs when one is in high school and buys a tanning membership.

- Mom jeans. Mom jeans consist of straight-leg jeans that rise above the bellybutton and result in a triangle shape around the vagine, and a slight wedgie in the rear. Mom jeans can be spotted at any park, zoo, school, playground, J.C. Penny, or minivan near you.

- Spider lashes. Spider lashes are very familiar to me, as I had them for probably ten years straight. Spider lashes are created when one buys "extra black" mascara and proceeds to coat layer upon layer over the lashes, until they are no longer lashes but just clumps of black extending from the eyelid.

- Cake face. Cake face occurs when one does not realize that they do not need seventy-two layers of foundation on their face, but simply just one.

- Bleach head. Bleach head occurs when one wants to dye their hair blonde and tries to do it themselves. You may have also seen this in 1998, on the heads of sixth-grade boys across the country. This was around the time Eminem became popular.

- The two-bra. This occurs when a fifteen-year-old girl has no boobs, so she purchases padded bras and wears to of them at the same time. This mistake can be easily spotted when you see a girl with an uncanny amount of bra straps on each shoulder.

- Crocs. Do I need to say more?

- The running shoe guy. This occurs when you meet a well-dressed, attractive dude, who you automatically would not consider because he is wearing a pair of old running shoes.

- Attack of the acrylic. This mistake occurs when one is ordering from Taco Bell and happens to notice that the female cashier has ten inch acrylic nails that she is using to poke buttons on the register. It can be very frightening and can lead to very strange thoughts.

- Face eater. Face eaters are folks whose brains do not connect with the nerves in their tongue, resulting in their prey being mauled with saliva.

- Male in pink shirt. This occurs when one is a chad.

- Stuck in the eighties. This unbelievable phenomena occurs when one over the age of forty does not realize it is 2010.

- The bun. The bun is often seen on teenage cheerleaders or girls in Juicy suits. It results in one's hair being piled atop the head and then pulled tight into a bun-like form.

- Inside-out sweatshirt. This occurs when one does not wash their clothes.

- Panty line. Panty line is formed when a female has not come to the understanding that full-butt underwear are a.) not comfortable, b.) not sexy, and c.) never to be worn underneath a tight skirt.

- Entering a tattoo shop on your eighteenth birthday. Nothing good has, or ever will come of this.

- Drunk girl/drunk guy. This occurs when one member of a group has not eaten that day. It results in a fight, everyone hating you, diarrhea of the mouth, face eating, hospital visits, random sex, STD's, DUI's, and karaoke.

- Shirts with slogans. Can often be found on people who think they're cool or witty.

- Too much caffeine. Results: shaking of the hands, headaches, clenching of the jaw, spilling and/or dropping things, shitting your pants.

- Too much reefer. Results: consuming 4,000 calories, watching Cartoon Network, kind of feeling like one is going to die, loss of movement in one's extremities, the pizza guy getting a really good tip, uncontrollable laughter at facial expressions, awesome sex.

- Turtlenecks. These devices were created for folks who do not, by any means, want to convey an ounce of sex appeal. Ever.

- The sag. The sag occurs when a male puts on pants, but not really.

- Thong attack. This can be commonly found among females who occupy their time in frat houses, or can randomly be found when looking over at a female sitting at another table at the Old Country Buffet. It occurs when a female wears jeans down to their pubes, and then pulls their thong up their asscrack in hopes that a male will come along and mate with them.

- One night stands. One night stands occur when two people are drunk and horny, or when a female is drunk and horny and a male is sober and horny. They can be found on your couch Friday and Saturday nights.

- Lip liner resembling that of Eminem's ex-wife Kim. This occurs when one buys black lip liner and lines their lips with it. The outcome resembles that of Eminem's ex-wife Kim, which, to my understanding, should not be a look anyone is going for.

- Drunk text. This mistake is made when one gets obliterated and finds it necessary to make it known to as many people as possible.

- C.O.D. "C.O.D." or, "cologne over dirt" occurs when a male does not shower, but owns a bottle of cologne. It results in immediate evacuation of a room and chronic migraines to those the male comes in contact with.

- Growout. Growout occurs when bleach heads get lazy.

- Pissing off your cat. Results: your cat pissing on your stuff.

- Unprotected sex. This is an all-too-common mistake made by folks who like to play Russian Roulette with their genitals. Results can range anywhere from, "thank god" to "oh fuck".

- Listening to Rise Against. Results: contemplating ending your life.

- Listening to Miley Cyrus. Results: see above.

- Making a Facebook account. Upon completion, one will not be able to listen to a song without thinking, "I should post that as my facebook status".

- "Hella". You'll never stop saying it.