Personal » The Blog From Hell

My highs and lows of the first decade of the millenium

Jan 032011

Now before you scream out. Sorry check your calendar, our calendar does not have a year 0. So the millenium began in 2001, and the decade (like all decades) begins in the first year, not the zero year – so 2 days ago, not a year and 2 days ago. Yep how geeky, trying to be mathematically accurate about these things – when in fact all it really comes down to is the earth (an insignificant little blue-green planet in the unfashionable western spiral arm of the galaxy as the great Douglas Adams once said) passing a completely arbitrary point in it's orbit yet again (which is rather unsurprising considering it's managed it quite successfully about four and a half billion times already.

And yet, I am human – dates matter to us. For all the existential and cosmic insignificance they have meaning because we gave them meaning. So I'll enter this new decade (which has begun with an event that promises to make it one of the best of my life) with a look back at the highs and lows of the last one. I'll do the lows first – because I would rather end on with the positive highs.

The lows of 2001-2011:

2001: The whole world forgot how hard we worked to prevent the Y2K disaster a year ago, forgot that the only reason it didn't happen was because people like me warned the world, they listened and we set to work – putting in countless hours and massive effort. By 2001 some people already called it scaremongering and laughed at people gullible enough to prepare for it… but some of us who were there remember – and know, to this day, that the only reason it didn't happen was because we prevented it. This was the year that realization started to sink in however – we would never really be thanked, our efforts would go unnoticed. Today I look at the predictions about global climate change- and how people call that scaremongering, and refuse to listen to the advice on how to prevent it. They listened to the threat of CFC's – and prevented the ozone depletion disaster, they listened to Y2K and prevented a global computer meltdown… but their not listening anymore. I guess we got to good at preventing foreseable problems from realizing – and now people no longer believe they were real problems. Looking back -I can see the roots of today's problem in this year.
2002: This was the year 9/11's true impact became known around the world – it put a maniac into the most powerful office in the world and solidified his position. Under his rule fuel prices skyrocketed, two massive wars were started (one entirely on lies), thousands of innocents died and everywhere in the world people's quality of life and freedom declined – mine as well. It may say something about me that I consider the impact of a leader literally half a world away as being one of the greatest personal tragedies I went through in this decade – but if freedom matters to you then you have to see it that way.
2003: In February of this year my then girlfriend of four years broke up with me. Shattering my heart. For a while I never saw anybody, though I had some meaningless flings. In March was in a bad motorcycle accident and somehow in the aftermath of that we got back together. Things were okay and we seemed to be making progress, but I wanted more. I wanted marriage, children – and she didn't want commitment. By June she proposed living together again, but in July I broke up with her. I only saw her one more time after that and I have no idea where she may be now as she cut off all contact. She always wanted to work for Peter Jackson in Neu-Zeeland. For the good 4 years we once had – when we were young and stupid (and mostly students) – I hope she got her dream. But this was my first true heartbreak. It counts without a doubt as the worst time of the year. Since bad years always happen badly, an even worse pain was to follow. My grandmother passed away shortly afterward making for one of the saddest events of this entire decade, an event I would write about in my poem Elegy.
2004: After a relatively uneventful year, the December of this year counts as the time I meet a girl. At the time I would have considered it the high of the year, 2 years after divorcing her for abuse, I see it as the worst thing that happened.
2005: This one went bad oh so early. In January of this year George W. Bush was inaugurated for his second term as president of the United States. The Star in Johannesburg covered the event on the front page under the headline: "A dark day for the entire world". Never before did freedom, equality and peace seem so far removed from humanity as the day the most powerful nation in the world proved that the fear of seeing two guys kissing was far more important to them than the welfare of their fellow human beings. This would set the tone for a year in which Bush's arrogance and violence would reach new levels, as he refused to attend the World Summit in Johannesburg (because apparently he was on holiday), finally did visit South Africa and became the first head of state in the history of the country to refuse protection by the South African police in leu of his own secret service guards (yes, that includes every other American president who ever came here). I sometimes wonder how much better my day to day life would have been that year if George Bush didn't rule America.
2006: This is the year I moved to Benoni for my job, I would spend most of the year there. I didn't know it at the time but it was the beginning of the end of my OpenLab years – and that is quite sad as they were all in all among the most wonderful years of my career.
2007: Oh there can be only one contender. I married that girl I met in 2005 at noon on February 12th of this year. Bad mistake. I guess the fact that the first time she threatened a divorce after a minor disagreement was on February 15th pretty much sums up why…
2008: The global economic slowdown as it was called hit, the start of a recession – and forced me to essentially close my own business and find a dayjob. While I love the job I ended up in – I do miss being my own boss, solving the challenges of customers and coming up with unique and innovative products and solutions. There was another major personal loss for me in this year. On July 14th of the year my longtime friend Uwe Thiem passed away.
2009: If marrying the wrong person was hard, and led me through enormous suffering – getting divorced was even harder. It would become without a doubt the worst year of my life. Sometimes what made it bad was simply taking stock of the previous four years in my relationship and subsequent marriage. Sometimes it was the stresses of trying to work out a divorce settlement. Sometimes it was just the reality of trying to rebuild my life. I spent a large part of 2009 in therapy.
2010: I think the very worst day of 2010 must be the day I came close to wanting to kill myself. As I sat home alone on a Friday night, drunk and miserable about the state of my life – I could see no point in struggling on. And as I cried for help… and found no answer from the friends whom I had always been there for – my misery deepened. My salvation came from an unexpected source, and I survived to be stronger and better than before – but those 12 hours were without a doubt, the worst of the year.

Now with all those sad and depressing memories revisited, and filed away – lets cheer up and look at all the good stuff of the past ten years.

The highs of 2001-2011:

2001: In this year I ended up my university studies and began my career at DireqLearn which would ultimately become OpenLab and be the start of a wonderful period in my life where I would travel the world and make a true positive contribution to the lives of others. It must stand as one of my proudest and happiest moments when I was first offered the position at that firm.
2002: This feels like such a long time ago. Honestly I can't remember many particular events – but I will tell you that the release of the Spiderman movie was somewhere among the happiest days of my year. Call me a geek if you will but man I'd only been waiting for that my entire life !
2003: The start of another career high as OpenLab signed our first contract with Netday Namibia. The contract would ultimately culiminate in our free operating system with it's massive collection of educational material running on 95% of all school computer systems in the country much to Microsoft's chagrin. It all began in this year however – and included my first visit to the country and meeting Uwe Thiem and Joris Komen who would become good friends.
2004: The highlight of this year must by visit to France. During the first week I was at a technical conference in Nancy where as (apparently) the first ever African visitor to this tiny industrial town near the German border I was treated as something of a celebrity even getting an introduction to the mayor. It was quite a sight walking through it's ancient streets and seeing it's old buildings and floral clocks. The second week I traveled through the Champagne region and then to Paris where I got to see the grand old city of lights in the sweltering heat of it's hottest ever recorded summer.
2005: The greatest event of this year must be the one that happened in May – when I published my book "Batteries not included". It was never a best seller and I never really expected it to be – but it was my work, my words, my soul beautifully bound with an ISBN number and all. That book continues to be a positive force in my life to this day.
2006: Once more the highlight of the year was a trip. This time to the beautiful and liberating San Francisco in the United States. My feelings toward the USA were less than pleasant at the time (as you can see from their two mentions in the lows list) but San Francisco was absolutely wonderful and I loved every second of my time there.
2007: I bought my first home. I still live in it – my little apartment in West Beach. For the first time in my life I wasn't renting, but a homeowner. Redecorating it to fit my personal style was an expensive but very fullfilling excersize ( and still not quite done ) and when I finally after months of looking walked into an apartment and knew "this is where I want to live" – I had one of the happiest moments of my life.
2008: This is the year I began work on Kongoni. Still a matter of personal pride though in the intervening years I stepped down as project leader it survives and continues to grow. In a real sense it was my last major code contribution to free software, while my believe in the ethics of free software has only grown with time – my energy hasn't and since stepping down from the project I have taken an extended sabatical from all programming which will continue for a while yet.
2009: Well it's the year I got divorced, the same thing I wrote up as the low of the year above was also the highlight. From it came a period of rediscovering myself, I started writing poetry again, I felt creative and alive again- that which had been suppressing me was gone. For all the hardship and suffering the divorce caused it was ultimately a needed thing which left me a better and happier person than I would have been without it.
2010: The first highlight of the year must be the day I met Caitlin who grew to be my best friend. Our friendship has only deepened over the months since and she's inspired me to try new things, be more myself and cut away things that were holding me back. She was a source of strength when I nearly crashed emotionally – and though we had just started being friends then was already proving what kind of friend she was. A realization that she continues to enforce not only in how she is towards me, but also towards our other mutual friends. Specifically one such mutual friend – whom she in fact introduced me to and that meeting must count as one of the biggest highlights of the year – Megan. Megan in whom I can see so much of myself, who gave me the strength to be a romantic again… who held me on the beach at Muizenberg in the final moments of the year and who started 2011 off with a kiss.

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Dreams delayed are not dreams abandoned

Diary 4 Responses »

Nov 162010

I considered writing this inside the 30daystruth post but I had been meaning to write it on it's own before I even saw today's topic and there were more important things to say. I have tweeted about this a bit in the past few weeks, but I haven't really said it publicly and in fact I have only mentioned it to a few friends.

I've loved rock music since I was young. In my late primary school years I declared that I wanted to learn music – I had in mind electric guitar, or rock drums… instead I was sent to piano lessons… classical piano lessons. I suppose my parents (like all parents) genuinely believed they were acting in my best interest - sadly it rather backfired. After 4 years of being forced to play an instrument I didn't like, and using it to play music I felt no connection to (classical piano lessons don't actually even teach you any of the good classical stuff – just simple tunes for the first many, many years) … well I grew up to despise classical music, when I learned history and realized that classical music was a tool of the aristocracy used to justify their suppression of the suffering poor, I instead felt myself connecting with the bardic music of the same ages. The minstrel's and their ballads – which has been a massive influence on folk metal in particular.

While of course a lot of classical composers were rebellious and often died poor as a result, and their music tends to appeal to me (Beethoven ROCKS dude), my soul has always been filled with metal I guess, long before I ever really knew what metal was.

I knew by about the age of 15 what instrument I loved the most. Rock drums. I made some efforts to try and learn it – asking to join the school marching band for example (and learning that apparently these days school marching bands don't teach music- they just use the kids who already learned). Even though marching drums are a completely different thing (each drummer only plays one instrument, one note – rock drummers play several, about the only thing they have in common is time-keeping) so that failed. I tried to buy a drumkit when I started university and couldn't afford it, so much for teaching myself. Years went by and my old dream remained just that, a daydream. Airdrums while listening to my favorite bands.

Until now. Over the past few weeks I have committed myself to doing what I have been wanting to do for these past fifteen years. To learn to be a drummer. I signed up for lessons and I had my first one last Saturday and I'm religiously practicing every day. Some go well, some go less well. In one lessons I understood more about how it actually worked than I ever guessed – and things made sense.

What about those old piano lessons ? Well one good thing came out of them – I can read notation, as it happens almost none of the notation I learned in piano class really applies though. Piano notes hardly ever go shorter than quarters- while drum notes are hardly ever longer than quarters. A drummer playing 4/4 time is probably playing at least 1/8th notes more likely 1/16th. For many songs 1/32th is not uncommon.

No nobody plays 1/64/th notes because that would be just about physically impossible, not even Lars Ulrich can move that fast.

15 years I waited, always keeping this dream alive, it's bloody time I do something about it. Right now I'm practicing on pillows and ashtrays – I'll be buying a real drumkit soon though, I'm already feeling the shortcomings of such things. Sure they can let you practice time-keeping and limb-independence but you can't really hear the results – which is especially noticeable in the complete absence of a bass-drum (rock drummers hit the bass with their right foot).

Every note I hit, every time I get a rhythm right (even if just three times in a row)… I glow, I can feel the small step toward a lifelong dream being realized. So what if I'm about 10 years older than most people when their playing drums professionally. So what ? It makes me feel good. That's all that matters.

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I need a time-out.

Diary 2 Responses »

Oct 212009

We are, rapidly, approaching the one-year anniversary of my initial announcement that I am starting the kongoni project. Today, I can look back at that year as an achievement, what was a vision has been realized into a released project with a solid and growing userbase. We’ve had an amazing hackfest where a lot of the core work toward our next release was done – and that was great.

However, 2.13.0 is going to be a little later than expected, in fact I won’t promise anything before early in 2010. The reason is very simple – right now, I can’t work on it, there are other people working on their parts, but the big “put-it-all-together” task is going to have to be postponed. I have at the same time during this year gone through terrible emotional events. A divorce was just the start, and it’s been building up.
Right now, I’m clinically depressed, I have very little energy and my sleeping patterns have gone straight to hell, what energy I have needs to go into my dayjob – to keep the bills paid. I feel no shame about saying: my limits right now are reduced, I cannot perform at my usual level and I need to cut down a bit.
I need to get home, eat a healthy meal and go to bed at a reasonable hour. I need to focus on dealing with practical matters-of-life on a one-at-a-time basis, solving them and preventing them getting out of hand, and I need to take care of myself a bit.

I have been through depression before, I know my way out, this is not a permanent thing, nor is it regular, in fact I haven’t had full-on depression like this in nearly 5 years, my normal techniques for preventing it… well they just couldn’t keep up with the sheer amount of things to deal with in the last few weeks.

So, though it saddens me, I have to say – a fundamental reason why kongoni is not only non-proprietory but crucially non-commercial is this: I don’t do deadlines. Kongoni was set up this way, so that if somebody needs a time-out they can take it, so that it will always be fun – never work.
Right now, it’s not fun, because I simply don’t have the strength. In a few weeks or months, this will change – and I’ll be my old self, of this I’m fairly certain – in the meantime, I ask you to bear with my. My fellow coders, keep up on your side, if you think you can handle some of mine, please do ask – I’ll try to help you get started. To the users, I know you’re all anxiously waiting for Cicero, and it will come, I will be back in the saddle as soon as I can.

But I don’t want to give you a rushed half-job, I want to give you the best next version I can – and that requires me to be the best I can be, and right now, I’m not.

So, for medical and personal reasons – I am taking a time-out from kongoni, for at least the next month or two. I will see where I stand in December and update you on when I expect to resume it (or perhaps that I already have).

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KNP

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Aug 182009

So if my blogging has been exceptionally slow lately, it’s because I’m on holiday. As I write this, I’m sitting on my campsite at Skukuza in the Kruger National Park, just about as far removed from Cape Town as you can possibly imagine. Nothing is cosmopolitan here, there is no mountain and buildings – just the bushveld, in many ways a home for me.

My family have lived in the bushveld for many generations and it’s in our blood. I was raised learning to spot the differences between a Sharpe’s Grysbok and a Bushbuck, being able to tell a white-cross eagle and a vulture apart simply by looking at the pattern of their flight, why a koorsboom (fever tree) is called that and the sound of hippos blowing a stream of water into the air.
In what remains one of the greatest national parks in the world, I feel a sense of wholeness and completeness that I cannot find in any city. Cape Town is a wonderful place, but this little natural refuge is indescribable and speaks to a side of my soul that would otherwise be unfed, thus my return to this part of South Africa usually at least once every two to three years.

Personally, I would be quite unconcerned if I never saw a single lion (though of course I respect my family’s wishes to find them) or leopard… I was feeling contentment when I saw my first Steenbok – even if it took only seconds before it disappeared into the bushes in the characteristic way of this shy little antelope.

By Sunday evening, I will be back in the big city. Back to dealing with work and customers and traffic, and back to regular blogging, I’ll upload some of my better pictures and maybe the rather nice video I took of a bufallo up close – but all that is for later. For now, this is the first time I’ve logged into my laptop and it will be the last for as long as i can possibly postpone it.

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The difference between insanity and genius

Diary 1 Response »

May 192009

is measured only by success.
Though quoting lines from Die Hard as inspirational is probably on the wrong side of the divisor…

So there has been quite a bit of well-meaning comment on the fact that I started a relationship. Now let me start of by saying that as surprised as many of you were, none of you were as surprised as I was. This was the last thing I had been planning.
The comments from our families on both sides are basically based on the premise that we’ve lost our minds, two divorce’s whose divorces are not even final… completely and utterly crazy – except, it doesn’t feel crazy.
It is telling that those friends who know me best, the ones who have been with me through the harshest of recent times – and the best of them, whom I cried to and talked to… they don’t think we’re crazy, they think we’re a perfect fit.
Perhaps their insight will be of value to those who, caring as they are, are not getting it.

That’s just it though… we are a perfect fit. For the first time in my entire life, I’m with somebody who completely and utterly accepts me as I am, who has no desire to change anything whatsoever about me. Trusts my judgement about my own life, and wants me to live it: true to myself, and if there is one thing that’s becoming clear in our conversations, it’s that I am also the first person ever who have done this for her.

If the past four years taught me anything it’s that we only get one life, and we have a duty to live it true to our own souls. We cannot spend it living somebody else’s life. Who am I ? I’m a hopelessly romantic, geeky, flirtatious, soulful, poet with an excessive affinity for really bad puns.
That’s who I am – like it, and like me, dislike it – and we won’t get along, and that’s okay – I don’t need you to like me, enough people do.
I am happy now, in a way I haven’t been for as long as I can remember – because I’m spending my free time with somebody who appreciates that – all of that, thinks that those are good things.

Right now, we’re making each other happy. Will we be right for each other for a long time ? I don’t know, this is a crazy time in our lives where we met. But we do know we are right for each other right now, and will be for some time. We can’t give this up because we don’t know what the future will hold – that would be true insanity.
So to all those who care about us, I ask – let us enjoy this happiness, whatever it may turn out to be, for as long as it may turn out to be. There is a shortage in this world of people who are accepting and tolerant and free-spirited. They are just about the only people who actually make the world a better place in general (sorry no: conservatism doesn’t do good, it never has, never will and never can- it will always hurt somebody, and that will never be a good thing).
I went on a lunch date with a girl – and ended up in a happy, crazy, unexpected relationship – and it’s wonderful. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
In a shitty, horrible time in our lives, we nevertheless met at the perfect time – we know this is may be hard to understand but from where we’re standing, in a weird way it makes perfect sense… but then everybody knows we’re weirdo’s, always have been, we’re infamous for it. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea for a couple of weirdo’s to act weird… it’s the only way we can ever be happy, ever be ourselves.

So thank you all for your support and concern, whichever form it took… but as Anita so eloquently put it: we’re okay, we’re really okay.

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Ten things you probably didn’t know about me

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May 132009

I felt like writing something a little different and more personal, so here is: ten things you probably didn’t know about me.

1. I think chicken batteries are the cruelest thing humans do en-masse to animals, hence I only buy free-range chicken and eggs
2. I did gymnastics as a child and martial arts for most of my teenage years, I am still about 30 degrees more flexible on any given joint than the average adult male
3. I once played a game of darts where I scored not even one single point the entire match (twice I missed the board entirely) and then threw the winning tripple-bulls-eyes on the last hand of the game.
4. I only drink on average one drink per month
5. I am sufficiently clumsy to hit my head on something on average at least once every 24 hours
6. I can type close to 80 words per minute, but I make a lot of typos so I am usually correcting as fast as I type
7. The only musical instrument I have ever been able to play with any reasonable degree of success is the air-guitar
8. I don’t like strategy games, I don’t like realistic FPS games, and RPG’s I only like for a week before they bore me… I like games where I can blow shit up with ridiculously huge rockets
9. I’m multi-orgasmic (sometimes at least)
10. One entry on this list is a lie – and you can’t guess which one.

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To the idiot with the blue suzuki

Diary 1 Response »

Apr 142009

I got my first bike just in February, ten years ago. It was a small Suzuki 200CC two-stroke, a second-hand that used to be a delivery bike with fifty-thousand kilo’s on the clock. Still – it was fun, and I enjoyed it. It was the start of a life-long love-affair with two-wheeled vehicles.
During the past ten years I have owned many bikes of various kinds, ranging from a 400CC Kawasaki ZXR superbike to an assortment of cheap scooters.

Currently I ride a Yamaha BWS100 scooter with an extended exhaust and a 125CC engine upgrade. As scooters go, it’s great. Faster than most with a pullaway speed that only the best bikes can match in fact (though of course it tops out at about 100kph while most of them can hit far over 200 even 300) it’s ideal for city traffic. It zips along, going through tight gaps and while it’s no speedbike, during the times I mostly ride I’m still generally among the fastest moving vehicles on the road – I don’t get stuck in traffic.

But today, I encountered something I had never seen before in my ten years of biking. Not once, ever. As I was coming down the R27 there was somebody on a gorgeous blue suzuki bike, I couldn’t see the exact model but by the size I’m guessing it was at least a 600CC. A speedbike and lovely one at that. For the first while we didn’t interact at all, he was faster than me of course but with the many red-lights on that road I basically never fell far behind.
When we stopped at the light by Woodbridge island though, I was next to him, and looked around to admire the bike… to my surprise instead of the usual responses along the like “yours is pretty nice too actually” or “awesome aint it” kind of gestures (or the cake-taking one a couple of weeks back from the hottie in the skin-tight leather on her mindblowing Harley who simply gave me one seriously suggestive wink when she aw me checking her bike out) … this guy was making a really angry face at me and shouting something.

Now I have no idea what he shouted, I had headphones in under my helmet. As it is, my phones are chosen not to block ambient so I can hear cars etc. – but frankly trying to make out something shouted from behind a helmet, through another helmet and Metallica’s Master of Puppets would strain anybody’s ears.
He gestured something angrily, I shook my head dismissively and ignored him and rode on as the light changed. After all, I didn’t know what his problem was but it wasn’t mine.

So on we rode, unfortunately our roads would turn out to overlap for quite some time yet, and throughout it all I not only kept up with him, but in fact was faster than him on several stretches because I could take gaps he can’t fit through. The more we road, the more he kept giving me rude gestures – I just kept on ignoring him and rode on. I suppose the ideal would have been to stop for a smoke and let him get away – but I was running a bit late so I had to push it a bit.

Finally as we approach the M5 via Paarden Island, he seemed to get really angry, finally the road was open enough for him to catch me up… then he cuts directly in front of me forcing me to do some rapid breaking, slaps me on the shoulder and rides off… I let him go ahead into the next stop-light cue, and as I was waiting behind him he kept turning around, shouting some or other rude insult, I just kept telling him “I can’t hear you”.

Finally we got on the M5 where the engine size actually matters and he rode away. I hit the next traffic light into Belmont drive seconds after him… but slowed down, letting him hit it green while I waited at the red, and made sure he was gone… this guy was dangerous.

I didn’t see him after that, and I’m glad of it. In ten years, I have never, ever before seen a biker being rude to another biker. Skill at riding, especially the kind that can keep a small bike close to a bike one under certain conditions have always been praised. Bikers on 1000CC machines have deliberately let me pass just so they could check out my little scooter. There is a fraternity among bikers, a brotherhood that, despite the movie image, has nothing to do with the size of your engine – it’s simply the recognition of a kindred spirit.

This guy, was the first exception to that rule I have ever encountered. Instead of the polite recognition of a fellow enthusiast of the hobby, here was outright condescension, rudeness, very dangerous behavior and anger… completely unprovoked. Was this some student-aged guy (since the road I take is mostly also the best bike-route from the west coast to the university this seems quite plausible) whose ego lies in his engine and who was simply infuriated that in the busy R27 traffic it meant nothing ?
Without boasting, he had a better bike but I was a much better rider -I got through traffic where he couldn’t and for most of the busy part of the road, I led. Was this what annoyed you ? Do you think that a scooter in front of your speedbike is an insult ? Should I feel insulted that when we hit the more open road of the M5 you left me behind like I was standing still ? I don’t – and if you did, well you’re an idiot.

Now letting yourself become upset by idiots is never a good idea… but this one pissed me off, not least because some of what he did could easily have seen us crashing into each other – but more importantly, this guy actually lived up to the bad image bikers so undeservedly hold with much of society. Instead of the funloving, friendly and fraternal bond that generally binds us – here was rudeness and testosterone-driven stupidity on two wheels.

The up-, or down-, side (depending on your choice of words) is that these guys never last long. They either learn a different way, or they crash and burn.

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I felt like writing a poem today

Diary 4 Responses »

Mar 312009

I felt like writing a poem today
I haven’t written one in many years
once I published a book of them
once I told the world my hopes and fears.

I felt like writing a poem today
but maybe I’m not as convinced of my own importance anymore
because I am writing it in a blog post, to be read and discarded and forgotten
As pretty and fleeting and impermanent as a castle on the sandy shore.

I felt like writing a poem today
something in me was inspired
I haven’t written one since I fell in love a long time ago
In a way it’s a eulogy to love expired

I felt like writing a poem today
And wrote a poem about wanting to write one
Self-referential, existential, quasi-intellectual… bullshit
And I can’t find a line because I want to write more and the only rhyme I can find is “done”.

I felt like writing a poem today
forgive me, I’m seriously out of practice
I’m no longer so used to letting the world comment on my soul
and that makes me rather nervous

I felt like writing a poem today
something nostalgic and sweet and happy and funny and sad
and all the mixed up emotions of my inner turmoil
Something that makes the reader smile even as it makes him feel bad.

I felt like writing a poem today
for all the things I’ll never be, the astronaut and the rockstar
and for how embarrassing it is to admit those two
and how I just don’t care because you can’t draw blood from a scar

I felt like writing a poem today
with too many versus and not enough rhythm and too much honesty
about love and loss and crushes and sexual frustrations
And then stick it in a blog post to live… ever so fleetingly.

I felt like writing a poem today
Help me because I don’t want to reach the end
I’ve tripped into eloquence and I can’t get up.
There is a hole in me I’m trying to mend.

I felt like writing a poem today
to tell the world everything and nothing and make you blush
and laugh and cry and weep and sigh
I felt like writing a poem today, and I did… what a rush.

I felt like writing a poem today
and if I don’t stop soon I’m gonna end up like Milton… interest lost.
except I’m not trying to preach or teach
I’m just communing with the shell and the ghost.

I felt like writing a poem today
So I wrote a poem, and stuck it in a blogpost with no regrets about it.
And now I’m going to hit publish
and then I’m going to forget about it.

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