Bad poetry

A bullet or blade, is how deaths are made.

Sometimes its cyanide, they way we hide.

When the pain of being born, leaves you hollow and forlorn.

It comes time to ask, why keep the mask.

Day in day out, it's all scream and shout.

But never out loud, that isn't allowed.

People would stop and stare, while you pull out your hair.

Their unknowing eyes, accusing you of lies.

Without empathy they react, believing it's an act.

No frame of reference, it must be a pretense.

Pain so deafening, no hope it's lessening.

Don't want world peace, just a moments release.

Broken inside, but desired outside.

Can't let them down, no time to frown.

This won't make sense, and neither will this.

Missing people

I do that from time to time. I was talking with Jo about some of her friends moving out of town and it struck me that I really miss talking with a lot of people I know. I've moved around so many time over the course of my life that it is kind of second nature to me, the missing people thing, and that I'm really good at just ignoring it.

Probably to good in fact. I don't take enough time to have real one on one conversations with people, even over the phone. I tag ideas and causes over Facebook and Google plus from time to time so I know people can keep up on what I think is important to talk about right now, but it's not really the same thing.

I often can't conceive of what I would talk with people about though. There are such huge gaps in between times I've talked with people that it's hard to remember who knows what. There's also the issue of about twenty years of casual drug and alcohol use compiled with a history of mental illness and/or mental disability (depending on how you want to look at it or phrase it). Tends to leave one's grasp on reality shaky at best.

This further compounds with a vivid imagination that I've cultivated from reading at least hundreds of books, thousands of television shows and movies as well. There's also the long periods of incarceration and self imposed solitude that were often only alleviated by my ability to escape into my head. Compound that with the fact that you can show people a video and get different memories recounted from each of those people, all following a current theme, and who knows what is actually real.

When you struggle with that question, coupled with others on a regular basis, it's hard to think of what to talk to other people about, even when you have been close with them. I still miss many of you though. I just don't know what to say.

Wandering thoughts

Often I look for a reason not to speak up about things. I am also super uncomfortable engaging in judgement of people. I am happy to condemn many behaviors (eating with your mouth open), things I don't believe have a soul (like corporations), and things that are fictional (Frodo sucks); but people, that just makes me feel sick.

So I keep what I have to say to myself, and often shock people when I do speak up. Sometimes I am dead wrong about things, but often I realize that some folks just don't see things they way I do. Trying to explain to folks how I accomplish things that seem amazing, but are really simple for me, is very frustrating. How I talk to cops is a good example.

I have rarely driven with insurance, but the only time I have ended up with a ticket, for the lack of proof, was the one time I got into an accident while I was driving. I have been pulled over several times, and yet the one ticket I got was for not wearing a seat belt.

I'm very good at demonstrating how harmless a person I am and relating to police. I never show fear, just overwhelming friendly curiosity about anything other than where my registration and insurance is in the car. I will talk about how there night has been, what their favorite part of their job is, what hobbies and interests we might share, and always concern that I might be keeping them from something important. This usually ends with me and the officer shaking hands, and occasionally them coming back after I've said goodbye to let me know, in an apologetic tone, why they originally pulled me over before heading back to their car to leave. I don't think I have ever actually shown a police officer my insurance (if I had it) and sometimes not even my license.

It seems obvious to me how this works out, but I can't conceive of how to explain it better than that. It is the same with other things like raising the minimum wage. I firmly believe in raising it, and yet I meet people who say it won't help. They like to point out how it will just increase the cost of living, but seem to miss the fact that the cost of living hasn't stopped going up even as the minimum wage stagnated 30 years ago.

If the minimum wage was adjusted for inflation and cost of living every year that would actually slow the rise in cost of living. There wouldn't be a reason to actually raise the cost of products to compensate for workers wages because it would end up being a zero sum game. Prices would raise and then wages would go up and then prices would raise and then wages would go up and it would be a weird cycle that no one would bother to continue to perpetuate overtime.