And for anybody interested, I'm over that girl, thank God. Just a brief update.
On a bright Sunday morning, decently awake after a late night of playing The Beatles: Rock Band, talking, painting, playing guitar, quoting from a PostSecrets book, and watching half of Dead Poets Society (a must-see movie for any aesthetic individual) with some of her friends (her boyfriend/my friend Alex and his friend Rob were supposed to be there, but they got in some trouble and couldn't make it, so Erin invited Sarah and Eilish [I hope I spelled that right] over instead) before falling into a slumber, my awesome friend Erin and I finally followed through on our idea of collaborating on some form of poem. Her friends had gone home, Sarah the night before, and Eilish after breakfast. I had only done a poem with somebody else once before, a bit over a year ago, and that was just for laughs and fun, and it turned out to be largely incoherent, but we were proud, Neil and I. Only after reading it about 5 times did we realize, "HEY! It's a poem about a YEAR! *giggles and bursts of autistic laughter*". I love poetry, obviously, and often an idea for a poem will sprout in my head and I'll make an effort to remember it until I can write it down somewhere. Erin shares my love for poetry, but she is so much more sophisticated and into it than I am, I know now.
Sitting in her basement after breakfast, we took turns writing and playing her guitar while her brother played Killzone 2. It wasn't extremely chatty, it was just a nice and honest time spent doing a thing we both love doing. Right off the bat I could see her skills in creating vibrant imagery with just words, so I tried my best to keep up. At one point I gave up on finishing one of my lines because of a lack of an idea of what to write as a last word, and she decided to finish it for me, awesomely. We got half-way and a broken pen before her mother drove us to a small town a bit to the west, a 5-10 minute drive. Her mother owns (I think anyways) a small shop called Bohemia there. Didn't really ask what she sells, but it sure looked cute from the outside. Erin and I took off across the street to The Stop, I believe it was called, a small coffee shop, and we both had strong black coffee. When she ordered, an older guy next to us in line recognized her going "Hey now, Erin! I haven't seen you for well over a year!". It was cute, and even though I had never been there before, I felt right at home. Felt just like a place I used to live, where everybody knows everybody, which can be a bad and a good thing. I just took whatever she had 'cause I don't normally drink anyways... And I just realized I never paid her back for my coffee. Crap.
We had brought the notepad with us to continue our writing while sipping steaming black, and while I wrote she'd write in her journal about who knows what. We small talked a bit. Then in the middle of me writing a verse, she got up from the table and fetched a small book and showed it to me. I think it was called "11:11 fm - up all night". It had a nice photo on the cover. Then I read the author's name, and realized it was Erin's book. Erin *Full name undisclosed*, I believe it said. Shocked, I looked at her and opened it and realized it was a giant collection of her poems, essays, excerpts from novels she has or hasn't finished, and photographs she herself has taken. Apparently there's this website called Blurb you can go to to get your stuff published rather cheap, and that's what she had done. She told me how she had bought a publication of it a year ago or thereabout, and just left it on the coffee shop's small book stand to be read by customers. She read it too and realized how "bad" they were and how they were basically all about this one guy who I assume she was into last year. But I really liked them. We were half-way through page two of our poem when we decided to leave. She told the dude behind the counter that she was bringing her book with her because she was so embarrassed because of it, despite him saying how lots of customers love reading it. We stopped at her house, picked up my things so they could drop me off at her dad's music store where my mother would pick me up, and we continued writing in the car. I put down my last line near the bottom of the page and handed the notepad to Erin in the backseat. She didn't finish it.
Our parents met and talked and Erin and I chatted a bit about nearby pizzerias and theaters and agreed to see a movie before I take off to Sweden on Sunday. Whether or not that is able to work out is another matter, but oh well. Before leaving I said "Hey, post the poem on facebook in a note or something!", to which she replied "Of course, I'll tag you in it, and I've got an awesome ending thought out too!".
Thus, here I am a few days later to share that poem to whoever stumbles upon this blog.
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Untitled. - A poem by Effy Erin and Joseph.
In reach of your mind’s grasp,
cataclysmic bursts of sunset drawing tomorrows sunrise,
shy’s the moon away into a cavern of non- existence and mourning.
Sordid, tired, bored.
The stars poignant in the dark fade into obscurity.
Seagulls black against the sky
accompany the sound of shattering waves with songs of yearning.
Sea mist clouding your train of thought,
tiny droplets of moisture
screaming ‘lie to me’, ‘lie to me’.
Grains of sand welcome them.
With false intentions they ask for truth.
Grains gain trust. Grains gain legitimacy.
But the seagulls and stars are caught in fabrications,
their souls entangled in nets
wires dragging them to the honest shore.
The nets and wires interlace their beings and souls into one,
granting completion for the realization of what was.
Now awareness and sourness awaits.
Finally roused,
conscious and painfully awake,
the gulls and the stars search the desolation
for what once was.
They come home empty handed once again.
Mused,
the sun rests beyond the horizon,
shrouding all in darkness.
With only pale stars to guide them,
the gulls glide off into an abyss,
lost souls,
stars now alone.
Abandoned.
The stars leak misanthrope tears and lament their stolen morality,
a veil of half- truths clouding their lustre.
The chalice of hope beyond their reach,
they grasp at pleasures and murky wine,
drunk with indignation.
Intoxicated with the notion
of waking up [ alone ]
Failing to fill your void with shadows,
traces in snow,
red stains lead below,
a note written across the blank sky.
Failing to distract themselves
from thoracic ruptures,
their misery tattooed across their foreheads.
Succeeding at nothing but self- contempt,
The tattoos grow darker and the traces deeper.
The marrow scarred.
Broken bones,
deserted stars scarred and marred
with unparalleled deceit.
Ebony eruptions of trust
like moth’s wings,
broken and paper thin.
Naked without innocence,
shredded state of mind,
delusional and repentant,
enigmatic patterns from the eruptions,
supernovas are born from these distorted beings.
Unadorned,
exposed.
Vulnerable like an artist painting the eyes of a lover.
They paint the contours of their loved ones across the sea.
11:11pm. They finish and make one last wish;
to disappear alongside the pallid moon.
To swing from the one remaining strand of truth in all of their lies,
to die an honest death.