Undead Minion

Why does the sky bleed its colors

Why do the worms rot my brain

Why do I crave the blood of others

Why must I constantly inflict pain

Why does the gutter flood with red

Why do my joints snap and crack

Why do I tear into their heads

Why must I turn the world to black

Undead minion, slave to the beyond

Chained to misery

Frenzied zombie pawn

Death's nectar - virginal sacrifice

A hunger so colossal

Only brains will suffice

Why do the humans all keep screaming

Why do they wave their arms to the sky

Why do they pray when they should be running

I'm going to eat them alive

I'm going to suck the meat off their bones

Gnaw the bones into tiny splinters

Sharpen the splinters to drive through the throat

Of another young bloke

Who won't live to see the winter

Exctinction

Slow, brooding, nightmarish killer

Watch your step lest you become a meal

Only one remedy

Explosive symmetry

When flesh is introduced to steel

Neverending quest for cold murder

Horrific desire for eternal slumber

Slaves to the beyond

Their existence is wrong

Live purely to eat and dismember

Onslaught continues, stampeding

Ammunition rations, shrinking

Pillars of fear, surrounding

Clouding all vision, unhinging

The door to sanity's unraveling

Thrust onto the floor with force

Brutal and barbaric, one thousand fangs

Gnash with psychotic madness

Upon discovery of gaping wounds

Frantic becomes hysteric; shooting pangs

Signal the arrival of Death's kiss

Landscape obliterated

Corpses scar blackened earthwounds

Death plumes swept into the breeze

Dark fog invades empty tombs

Silver shadows silently freeze

Hope and bodies fuel the pyres

Ghastly whirls of sickly ink

Extinguished in a fragile blink

Hushed back into the great beyond

Humanity's fate, lost to the fires

Of the hellspawn

Haze

don't look now she's gathering speed

cocooned with fire and party beads

gummed to the sticky floor

directly in the path of the storm

traced by smoky vanishings

upon a beaten shore

waves and seashells search for more

to light up their skies

they must prepare so

when we arrive

our bodies will erupt into dust

ten million colors scorched by the flames

of the friends we trust

will we survive

running as fast as we can

towards those lights in the sky

maybe we'll die

i'll fall asleep on the sand

for as long as it takes

to fill up the space in your eye

destroyed a halo, deceived honest men

eroded the values i held

way back when i had dreams

my seams frayed and thin, i smiled

gladly dove in, but was spit out

ripping out the pages from my seventh-century tome

i had been shown all of my broken bones

but i couldn't feel them

flying off of a building into an art-deco painting

i started panting, i just had

to talk with you

crossed and doubled, by sleight of hand

a ripple in the master plan

a drop of salt, out in the sea

one baby bird in a thousand trees

surrounded by the coastal groves

seeded by currents, their undertows

each root a story, each leaf a light

in night's silent pulsing groove

Easter sunday. Spending it in memoriam of the blissfully ignorant childhood I once possessed. 

I can see the sadness in my mom's eyes. Suddenly I can't talk about my dad around her. Nothing is familiar anymore. I have managed to survive this year by blocking it all out, by throwing the crushing reality under the covers. I feel little to zero relationship with my dad anymore, now that all of this is unraveling. I hope I don't grow to resent him, but I can't help but see that happening. I never want to have a marriage based simply on comfort, fear, and patriarchy, and even more so, I don't want to force somebody to give up the best years of their life to a cause that is held together by withering wire. 

My sister is under my dad's thumb. She is being poisoned, mummified by materialism. This next year will further drive her further into the ground by not escaping. It really is crushing to have your entire reality shift 180 degrees. I grew up in a house of mirrors, and all of them have cracked. Times were so much simpler then. I would go to the grocery store with my mom, go to sports games with my dad. They never, ever went on dates with each other - it was always just to card club. No romance, just results.

I feel sick to my stomach, lower than detritus. I can't even bear to think how I'm going to deal with going home each weekend next month. If I lived at home this summer, I'd go insane. My childhood was almost too perfect - I was only fed that which I was prescribed. This life of gift-showering and electronic parenting was what I perceived to be normal. I forsee myself going to a counselor in the next couple years, this pain is too scarring. For the record and for posterity, my greatest fear is having a false marriage and a life masked by things, to raise children that do not know what love is, and to coast through life as an outsider to everyone, including myself. 

My grandma tells the same anecdotes every time I see her. She can barely hear, and has lived alone for 10 years. I wish I had relatives that lived in the area, I feel like my family is an ever-shrinking dot. For what its worth, I don't really have grandparents. I never saw my parents interact in positive ways, and that made me uncomfortable to the point where I've always been afraid to ask my relatives about their lives. 

I see my aunt and uncle, the people who i've visited with my family at thanksgiving and the holidays all the time growing up. Their marriage is a real one. They go out and do things, they both genuinely love each other. I've been blessed with so much, but I'd gladly trade just about anything that would ensure I would still exist and whoever my parents would be would have a marriage based on something real.

Burned into the back of my eyes is the living room scene on october 5, 2008. like a chain reaction, the tears uncorked. i instantly went into freeze mode, and being with everybody again has resurfaced those feelings. when i see that visual, my hand immediately balls into a fist, representing 22 years and exactly 6 months of life wasted. the tears recycle into burning anger, and upon the realization that i can't alter the past, they return to tears. 

with every failed relation/opportunity with a girl i have a thing for, i feel constantly prodded by a hand of fate. i try not to believe in fate, i try to believe that we all pave our own destiny, but maybe i'm thinking about it in the wrong way. maybe there is one end goal, no matter what, but we can go and do what we choose in the mean time. i need to escape this ethereal prison. i need to have proof that love exists. solid proof. not based on history, not based on fear, not based on convenience, but a true passion and desire to live for the other, and have those feelings be reciprocated entirely. i have yet to experience this, in my years of dating. steph and i were never on an even keel. in the past year, largely it has been me overcompensating for trying to recover lost time, to find that spark again. i've had new sparks many times this year, but they all fizzle. 

i am bitter. i am frustrated. i am lonely. i have nowhere to go. i am slowly becoming pessimistic. for all the waste that my parents went through, that makes me want to be with somebody and really treat them right that much more. 

firing on allllll fronts. all the good ones at least.

New music - I have a feeling that all i'm going to be listening to in the next week is Mastodon, Kylesa, Prince, Built to Spill, and Dan Deacon. I feel like I'm slipping into another metal phase, and I am feeling very positive about this. Maybe I'll have a Loud Rock show next semester?

My guitar playing has never been better. I'm writing hooks and choruses like nobody's business, and I just wrote lyrics to a song in about an hour, and I'm pretty proud of them. Here it is, working title The Silent Skies:

Seeds of promise heated hot by dawn

Wilted leaves, crackled to a crisp

Eyes frozen by passions untrue

Nothing will ever lead me back to you

 

Shades of thick blankness cement the dead

All fingers hammered with crimsoned sledge

Pooling crude, brightens my mood

No trace left to lead me back to you

 

Raw spark

Sets aflame

The Silent Skies

 

Heart-lit fuse

Ribbons of red

Phoenix arising

 

No apology no sincerity no idolatry

You crumble through my broken fingers

Asphyxiation, a metamorphosis

Hushed out into the timber

 

Tobacco plumes, grey and black

Outlined through dimensional foresight

Sealed off wounds bursting through

Lunar cycle of sin

 

Raw spark

Sets aflame

The Silent Skies

 

Corrupting muse

Inside my head

Turned toward the floor

 

Mind wiped, brain stewed

Recycled inertia all brand new

You can come closer

But there's nothing left

To bring me back to you

A month has passed, and as has been par for the course this year, lots of things have changed. I'm climbing some ghostly ladder, rung after rung after rung. Somebody tipped the can over, and all the sauce spilled on the ground. I could try and clean it up, but then if you try and use it, you're still using dirty sauce. So, naturally, you buy a new jar, pop it open, stir it a little, and heat it up to see if its to your liking.

If all goes according to plan, I will be attending five festivals this summer and paying for only one of them, the cheapest of the five. 

DEMF - actually paying for, but maybe only one of the days

Bonnaroo - paid for, but the transport/food/merch/camping gear costs will inevitably come

Rothbury - will volunteer = free ticket

Pitchfork - will more than likely get a press pass for, if not, purchasing a ticket

Lolla - will volunteer = free ticket

May will be a very crazy month show-wise, there's one every weekend, and there are 5 weekends. Mastadon, Dan Deacon, Animal Collective, Opeth, and Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction. All of them are in Detroit too so I'll be doing some serious driving

What I'm looking forward to most of all is living on my own this summer. Interning, working somewhere close, writing a lot of music, and biking everywhere

I really like where things are headed - they're headed into the light, into the open air, amongst everything that is free and positive and united.

(+)
* Promotions for The Whale - the group has narrowed and only those that are truly interested in getting involved have stuck around, I respect these people a great deal

* Love - the train is finally rolling in. It feels incredible to have somebody break through the walls you put around yourself, but on the other hand it is odd having there be something to fill that void, I have to remember how to handle this feeling and how to improve upon the past

* The summer/future - at least on a personal level, I couldn't be happier. living arrangements are set up for the summer, this should be a lot of fun. Bonnaroo's coming along with a whole bunch of fantastic shows, as well as the much wanted warm weather. I feel like/have felt like that I have way too much that I want to do in each day, and upon my mind crashing in realization of this fact I typically just flip open the computer screen and mindlessly drown everything in the glow. I need to stop this, but I suppose its a better position to be in than having nothing at all to do. Resident Evil 5.

(-)
* Walled Lake - I dread going back. Not simply because I feel I've outgrown the city, but because the house I've spent the most amount of years in is nothing more than a hollow carapace. It really got to me on Sunday in the few hours I spent there on how depressing it really must be for my mom. There are so many little things in our house that take you back to a happier time, a blissful existence that seemed almost too perfect. I think this is a reason why I am so eager to move forward - it's half because I am scared to look back at the trail of rotten heirlooms and old electronics. I know that house is a poetry/art/nostalgia goldmine - I immediately felt a total shift in my mental state when I opened the door, and it lingered for a couple hours after I left that night

* Doubting my career - I have no idea how much someone with a broadcasting degree from GVSU might make out of college, if there are any jobs available, or if I'd be better off either a) changing my major, b) going to a better school for broadcasting, or c) just sticking with it and hoping for the best. I was always so scared, even up to last year, that there weren't any majors I could see myself doing, but this looks exactly like what i want to do. I'll never be as rich as my dad, but I wouldn't trade any amount of money to be where he's ended up.

When I look ahead 10 years, I see myself being very happy. Hopefully by then I'll be married with a solid career in the broadcast arts, remaining in touch with the world/the arts/technology, with a beautiful and smart wife, about to begin raising our first child whom I will do all I can to give him or her the abilities/knowledge that was left in the dark for me to stumble upon

I scare myself at how positive this entry looks

I've been in a whirlwind of mental states lately, ranging from extreme happiness and full-body ecstasy to pigeonholed isolation and hopelessness, molding together and producing a one-track mind, with anything unrelated being perceived as negative and detrimental. I feel really unproductive, feel detatched from my duties as promo director/most everyone at the station, and dread going to work. Classes are beginning to grate on me - for some reason I feel behind in everything. The only things I want to do is play guitar and learn more about it, and be with the girl I like.

The summer will be a time of massive change - I will be moving ever further from Walled Lake, and more in the direction my future career in broadcasting/audio production will hopefully take me. I'll be living in Grand Rapids for the entirety of the summer most likely, while interning at WGVU running production-type stuff. Bonnaroo is going to be incredible - I do believe it will be the best weekend of the summer, and it just might be able to top Lolla 08. I plan on volunteering at Rothbury again and am anxiously awaiting any info regarding the Pitchfork fest - the lineup for that is always so solid, plus its cheap, and fairly close.

I might invest in a video camera to document my life this summer, for I honestly haven't the slightest clue as to how it'll turn out. For the first time in 4 summers I won't be working at the movie theatre back home, this will be a massive change in and of itself. I think video has a lot of possibility to document yourself in a much more original and genuine way, and at the very least I want some memories to look back on.

I know what I want my band to sound like. I want heavily distorted, fuzzy sounding, multi-layered guitars, but I also want a certain ferocity and aggressiveness that a lot of punk music has. This would be a good summer project.