inspiration

     Inspiration is a funny thing.
When kept private, it affects no one.

     I write things all the time. 

     Once, i remember, being in the shower and using the freshly opened carton from a bar of soap i pulled from the trash and my sister's eye makeup pencil to write down a line i thought of while showering. 

    that's how shit works for me.
 Sometimes i see things in the world that make me think of lines, and other times i carry on situations in my imagination that never happened and get inspiration from that. My favorite source of inspiration is misheard lines from real music. i often hear things differently from what they are really saying and i keep those lines for my own use because they are nowhere near what was actually in a song.

     i have extensively used girls as my inspiration for years. i have cultivated terrible relationships and have been able to use that anguish to write some fairly decent things.

     the problem with showing people material is that they always want to know who it's about. well, certain people want to know who a song or poem is about. some people don't give a shit. 

    i remember my friend used to have a blog where he would post these epic verses that would double very well as death metal lyrics. 

     And after each new poem, some girl would be on there asking who it was about, or claiming to know exactly what he was talking about. i always found that funny.

    i'm not saying that we are the same person, but sometimes i don't even know what the fuck i wrote about. 

     Sometimes i'll be sitting in a bar, drunk and nostalgic for a time that didn't exist, when i'll whip out my phone and write a paragraph about a feeling related to no one in particular.
that's how my song "guilt" came to be. i came home drunk and scribbled some shit in a notebook. was it about anyone? no. 

     sometimes they come from things you just can't say to people. People change when you tell them things.

i was searching for a quote from Catcher in the Rye, but i couldn't find it. 

it may not even exist, really. 

but if it does then i'll find it later and add it in here.

     for example; when you tell a girl that you like something she does, a habit or a certain way she does something, it calls attention to that certain thing. then she knows you're watching her do the thing. inevitably she gets self conscious about doing the thing and stops altogether. so you're better off not saying anything in the first place. girls are like that. 

    

 (this is a song i wrote that sucked)

Smoking
trying to hold onto something that has gone.

under the moon, i am alone in this world
the stars are my comfort... a reminder

streetlights bathe me in their momentary glow
As i wait for another day. another day. another day.
another day.

the sound of still strikes violently with each breath
leaving behind memories its wake

and i am the only

Life slips away slowly
Another night, another night, maybe another night. 


     this song is about me. and some of the things i feel sometimes. not all the time. not even now. a fleeting feeling. the first line is about me going outside to smoke (back when i did that). i used to go outside and sit on the curb and smoke a cigarette at around 2AM. it used to make me feel like crap. i never got relaxed smoking cigarettes, they always made me feel like shit. but they made me feel a different kind of shit than the one i was feeling. i didn't have to think about anyone at all. i would sit out there in the dark and silence and watch the smoke drift away into space.

     the second line mirrors the loneliness of me sitting outside alone while everyone is inside asleep. the stars are a reminder that even though they appear to be a field of stars they are in fact far apart and unable to connect with the other stars.

     the part about the streetlights is because the part of the curb where i used to sit has a streetlight right next to it. i imagine all the photons raining down on me like a cosmic shower and i wait for another day. i imagine that another day will make things better. 
the "another day" part is also a nod to a song called "Electro-Shock Blues" by the Eels. i used to love this song. who knew that a decade later i would be eating the same pink pills to feel better.

     "the sound of still strikes violently" is my favorite line from this song. when you're sitting out at that time of night there is no cars driving by, there is no people talking, there is no noise. silence strikes like lightning and leaves empty spaces all around. each breath that i take is me trying to exhale away my memories and go the fuck to sleep.

     
the end part is just the feeling of being alone. regardless of how many people you now or how you are loved. maybe another day and i'll be normal.


     So inspiration is a funny thing and most of the time the subject gets lost in between the lines and blends in with feelings from somewhere else. i'm not really even sure how to get this across, but i know that inspiration comes from everywhere and just because a few lines are written doesn't mean anything terrible.


     it almost makes me want to stop writing when people get hung up on who things are about.