Beauty Inebriating Reality

Courtesy of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, I have been reading from my old blog (late-'03-'04). I just now found a poem I wrote in May 2001, a few days after my high school graduation.  I remember the moment I wrote it pretty well; it was shortly after the last of my out-of-town relatives left here, who'd come in town for the Big Party.  It definitely represents the emotions I was going through at the time: the changes which were to ensue given the fact of graduation; the frustration of making a huge "to-do" about the graduation, which was, frankly, an excuse for everybody to have a family reunion (i.e., I was the poster-boy for something which wasn't really about me but about them -- if I'd had my way, I wouldn't have walked at graduation, and I wouldn't have had a party); and I'm sure there were other things on my mind at the time, but the hitherto reasons were most certainly present in the mix. This was posted on the Old Blog, Catharsis, on 18 Sept 2003.  I have, just now, made a couple edits, but the substance remains the same.  It is admittedly a work of adolescent amateurdom, but I stand by it just the same.
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"Beauty Inebriating Reality"

Nostalgia over an event that never occurred;
Homesickness for a home that never was.
Music is a soundtrack to a movie reeling in my mind;
A 1980's melodrama starring your favorite actor when first starting out.

And the theme makes me feel thus:
"Driving home at dusk,
I realize how I long for last summer with her."
Then I remember that there is no such thing as summer;
Only Spring, Fall, and Winter—
long, cold winter.
And she was never there; it was always my imagination
Making life more interesting.

It seems then that I write songs about other people's lives;
I borrow their hearts for a moment;
And yet, they are more so my life than anything else:
A continuous oxymoronic paradox—
Or perhaps it is an ignorant paradise.

Life is an endless circle of events that never occur;
An ongoing daydream of mellow colors coming out through my fingertips.

And it is strange: if I had you, I would most likely forget what life is;
The song would be over,
The credits roll, the curtains drop,
The sun will set,
Existence cease:
For all that Romance is not located in possession, but in Desire.

Punks and Poets sit drinking coffee,
Discussing the demise of one who sought true love over
Glory and fame—
And the blissful dagger in my heart spills joy all around . . .

The thought of never experiencing what we all love the most.
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