Slow sorrow

Somewhere

In between

The fields

Of smoke

And ash

Cities

Bombed into remains

——

He saw the sunrise

——

He wondered how

We seek perfection

Like a destination

Where

We will finally

Be able to do

To

Be the thing we desire

Out there

Where there is no evil

no wounds

No broken places

No slow sorrow

——-

He checked his bandage

Someone called out his name

——

It was snowing

——

Surely

Surely we must be strong enough

Even in the broken places

To love

To love

To love

Today

-E

Arrive

We paint things
With hash tags
And love songs
Only
It was just
Two people,
Someone loving,
The other being loved
Someone giving, adoring,
The other, receiving and being adored.
And they called that love
——-
And when she grew tired of it
Cold and empty
They couldn’t understand why
Because everything from their side had been great.
——
I held her in my arms
And she stayed there for a moment
And asked me
Why
Why is it
That we always seem to arrive too late …
Dashed against the earth
Like reality
All the colour
All the pain
We never wake up…
Until it’s too late …
—-//
I said I wasn’t sure
And for once
I really wasn’t
Or maybe
I didn’t want to be

-E

Artist

But there is nothing great
About the “starving artist”
There is nothing great
About suicide
Self harm
Self sabotage
Or poverty
These things are just human
We work
We strive
We struggle
And we carve out time to make art
We flex muscles that haven’t been used
Like crossing a bar to talk to a girl that no one has the courage to …
Just do…
Do the things that terrify you
That’s the only things worth doing…
But starving? No
It will change you
Absolutely
Give you subject matter
Yes, maybe,
But you will be stuck in survival mode
Poverty will change you
But does it make you an artist?
I don’t think so…
Making your art
Makes you an artist ….
If you work to eat and make time to make your art
You are an artist
And
If you worry
That you are not real
That you are somehow
Faking it
know
Yes
You are real
You are making it
And you should continue

-E

The pitch

I am up with the morning,
I Fry bologna and slice a tomato and onion
toast and eggs…
——
You have this idea in your head
Whatever it is, it’s been sold to you…
Somewhere you heard it and the pitch and you decided to buy it and believe it and make it your own…
——
Who is worse, me or the narcissist ? The hammer or the nail?
The artist with their delusion
Or the average person unable to see what we see?
I make coffee
There’s a woman in my bed sleeping with the rain
——/
We all need company, touch, a heart that listens
Someone to nurture the good in us
Someone to help us feel normal
If just for a night
——
We work and hope we can still live…
Hope we can be good or better than what we know or fear we really are inside…

But the secret is we still get to decide…

-E

The Graveyard (love is a hashtag lost in the algorithm)

It’s a long walk
From the dream
To the graveyard
Soles of your shoes
Worn through
You try for your art
For your love
You try to write
But is it the words ?
Or the aesthetic
Would the life
The words
Stand on their own?
The hash
The filter
The aesthetic
We are group thought
Born into this newsfeed
Conditioned and groomed
And we are shot through
By the stale morning breath that is reality

Hell and Living

We were young
And
We didn’t have expectations
We thought that made us better
But it was a lie
Everybody has expectations
Even if it’s expecting us NOT to have them…
But it was really just saying
I’m afraid I’ll let you down
And then you will leave
—-
People stay with what they know
We dated people that would date us for 7 years while looking for their soulmate
And we dated people who didn’t have any goals or ambition
But why ?
A friend from out of town asked me one night …
I told them it’s just easier because
If you’re with someone who knows exactly what they want
Where they are headed
You’re suddenly afraid
Because you might not be what they need
And you might not get a second chance with them if you let them down or hurt them
But with these other people
You can waste decades
And there’s no risk
It’s just what we know
What we are comfortable with
And used to
Like anything else ….

They just looked at me
Shook their head
Poured another drink…

I thought about how life is….
How we are….

And how nice it is we can change .
At any moment.

-E
Regardingsamuel.com

Locals

If winter is cold and empty

Summer

Is fire in the blood

Bourbon on the lips

Out here

On these mountains

Where the dust settles

In the valley

Like the floor of the churches

Along the tracks in your hometown

We learned

About fire raining down burning the alter and the dirt around it

Survivalism is our anthem

Overcoming

Is what we are

And we didn’t have much

But it was enough

authenticity is learned

Like intimacy

And truth

She teaches herself

How to live

How to overcome

How to be anything

And you are earth

Grounded

She is sky

Higher than

What they are selling

She’s ok with the finer things

She’s ok with the little things

She’s always growing

Alright

You have to keep going

You have to keep growing

You have to understand

Anything can change

Anything can happen

There’s no rules

summer

On the mountain

It used to be the kind of

Thing

You were carefree

Trains on the track

Gas in the Datsun

You were and you weren’t

Time after time

It’s alright

We become as we grow

Fire in her eyes

Lonely isn’t empty

You get knocked out

Broke down

Let down

Time after time

You build yourself back

You build yourself back

You pour out the bitter

You cut out the root

You keep growing back

Like these mountains

Like these roads

Only local understands

You continue

She continues

You continue

We continue

Go

-E

Regardingsamuel.com