Negative consumption.

Think about it.

Tattoo.

 

My tattoo. :) 1.5 years to design fully. Still in process of tattooing.

Shared Life and Death

This poem was written for someone, in response to a painting he did about a sad experience we shared. I miss him a lot.

A Shared Life and Death.

Your heart is heavy, sorrow

is taking its toll and you're not alone.

You have seen death and for a moment,

a piece of it has broken off within you.

I feel a little of the weight

your shoulders bear, but you're not alone.

We watched the life disappear from his eyes,

and you hold me because that's all you can do.

We part ways and you paint

about life and death, and you're not alone.

The painting is nothing like you,

but that doesn't mean it's not true.

A world of love and life

that ends in death, but you're not alone.

We live to protect our lives, a cautioned

meaningless existence, consumed.

We are temporary, you cry

to the masses, and you're not alone.

They listen but don't hear, a harbinger

of fate, a looming doom.

“Open your eyes!”, you plead

till you're weary, but you're not alone.

They will not listen and choose life,

they feed on lies and spit out truth.

So you paint about life and death,

please don't give up, because you're not alone.

Hold on, don't go to sleep.

If you die your dream could die too.

Drifter

This is a poem that took me about 45 minutes to write and another 2 months to edit to where it is now. It is a combination of mine and 3 other people's lives, with a bit of dreaming, to formulate the idea behind a lifestyle. It is extremely close to my heart, as are all people of this part of our generation. There really is too much behind it to explain in a blog, but here it is. I'm happy to give more explanation should you feel the need.

Drifter 

By Terra Hyland

I was born into mediocrity

growing up in the American Dream,

craved and coveted

to the point of obsession.

Parents that tried to provide it all

for their children, a house

with two bathrooms and a den, a nice shiny car

with a CD player and air conditioning.

Working 9 to 5 and sometimes later.

Dinner was at 7, sharp.

What would they have said if what I needed

was more, was love, was freedom?

What would they have said if I told them

how I suffocated in their straight jacket

of safety? Choking on the pill,

I spit it out.

I find some kids at a coffee shop

in the city, go to concerts, learn to love

music that is just a putting together

of sound. Learn all that a camera sees

and the beauty of simplicity. Learn the secret places

of the world, quiet and unexpecting.

Learn the joy of dependency on no one

and dependency on everyone.

Learn to love sleeping

on the floor, and eating what others

left behind, of making anything

you need, patching up

abandoned treasures. People don't even realize

the value of what they throw away.

That a whole culture can live on it.

Again the stifling of the norm squeezes

the air from my heart. I know

I will die if I stay here. I need

to get out. But I have no money.

I hitch a ride as far as Buffalo, play guitar

for a few pennies. Find a family, kind father to give

me a ride, watchful mother, delighted daughter.

Conversation with a family, dangerous shadow play

with the American Dream. Get out

at Erie, suffocating, close to tears.

I find the train yards, try

hopping trains, I nearly kill myself

the first time, nearly get killed

every time. It puts life in my bones again.

I'm freightin' anywhere

there's a train yard. Now I can see

the world, or at least America. Know

all the quiet, secret places, meet

some of America's lost children, forgotten

men. Feel all of the hurt, the pain, the love,

the kinship of strangers, the beauty beneath it all.

In my ear, a longing whispers,

a constant nagging companion.

I am not happy, I am alone.

All the strangers in the world

cannot fill this hole.

I need more.

A home.

This is freedom, what I looked for

and found. This is freedom,

but it's not a home.

I return to the city where I was born.

My friends are gone, but my corner

has not been touched.

Not for three years.

A letter arrived, I find it when I creep in

to the abandoned warehouse

where a drifter was born, me.

I look at the simple white envelope,

recognize the swirly scripted writing,

what is it? My name. I remember now,

my name.

What it used to be.

I smell the faint, haunting scent

of my mother's perfume, clinging

to the envelope. The smell of roses dances

in my nostrils, like the stench of corpses,

choking my freedom, enticing me to the grave,

calling me home.

I look up at the lost children of America,

the ones free to live in love and squalor.

The ones running from the safety of white walls

and sedation called the American dream.

The ones who smelled death and got away.

The family with no home.

I am a Drifter,

and I am not alone.