Music is my Real Talk

Alright let's talk
Let's talk real

Real talk: I wish I had more time
Real talk: I  hate it when people say , "don't worry about it."
Real talk: I didn't want to turn 18
Real talk: I think that most teachers don't have souls... Ironic...

Real talk: I'm losing my hearing

Real talk: these little white buds are going to make me go deaf

I think I speak for most teenagers out there, when I say that my headphones and my ears are a like those couples that hate each other, but can't break up.

I don't need my ears

I can hear through my calluses, and be with people through theirs.
And I would never consider myself a musician.

I walk the halls with my guitar strapped to my back not because I'm trying to show off, but because it's shield. But because half way through the day, when I'm not sure if I'm still alive, I can utter the broken emotions of others to guide me back into my own eyes.


Real talk
Real talk

Real talk: My depression used to be a pit, a shovel and the devil.  It used to be a scoop of dirt a day; ice cold fingertips clawing at lose ground as I reached for handfuls of empty desperation.

Being buried used to scare me. But when the next scoop made no difference to my already covered eyes, only then did I know how to fear.

Its cliché but the empty blackness, the void... Is worse.

Real talk: I've seen both, but I'd rather know what I'm feeling then be anxiously horrified by what I'm not.

I don't need my hearing.

Because just maybe if I turn the music up loud enough I won't be able to hear myself mourn.

Maybe, for just a split second, the angry beating of the drums can become the angry beating of my heart.  And when the violins slip their way into the chords, I can't help but be reminded of the sound my tears make when they glide from my eyelids.

Notes are pleas- frets are prayers -  and those little arrows that signify the strum pattern, those are my final words.

"Let me feel something."

I'm losing my hearing, yes. But  I'd be glad to lose my ears  If it meant that I wasn't losing my heart.

Cousin

I remember being seven- I remember staying up waaay past our bedtimes and having only the night sky and our bare feet to guide us back to our homes. I remember running for hours playing-quite frankly- stupid games, but loving every second of it. I remember our feet being so light that we might as well have been floating over the grass because we were freer than most. I remember being free.

I remember Sunday, summer nights. I remember the playful warfare between us and the older cousins. I remember every game being another chance to try to scare the living daylight out of our siblings, and oh how we loved that.

 I remember being carefree. I remember thinking, “I wonder, if I can push this sleepover weekend three days.”I remember calling you every weekend, your mom giving me the same excuse every time. You were both so annoyed.

I remember the “deep” conversations we would have about our simple crushes or what we really thought about [insert cousins name here].

 I remember growing up.

I remember telling ghost stories, not realizing that we would one day be the dead-eyed ghosts that would haunt our childhood vibrancy.

I remember the days our two older cousins left on missions and you and I left tears in our eyes.

I remember feeling robbed.

I remember wishing for those Sunday nights back, so I could watch the sun rise and set simultaneously one last time.

But I couldn’t.

All I could do, was remember.

Letters to Them

Dear Heart,

I'm sorry. I wanted to write about my strengths, but lost my vision after I saw him rhyming, her kissing, them dancing, and all the while you and I were still trying to find one another. Brain wrote me a while back, and said, “ Oh, Tyler. Don’t you get it? Your strings have already been plucked by the greats. Your pen hates your clichés and your blog thinks you need to stop taking yourself so seriously.” I probably should have come to you for therapy, but was to ripped apart by regret. Sometimes I feel like that’s the only thing brain makes me feel anymore.

I also remember a time- about three months ago- I wanted to quit my job, but my brain told me to shut up and get realistic. I know you don’t like brain( and lots of times I don’t like brain), but we actually kinda need him.

We don’t really spend enough time together, Heart; I want to change that.

            Probably not till the end of the term, though. Brain’s got me in a freaking boot camp at the moment.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Tyler

Dear Tyler,

I’m not going to pretend like I’m not hurt, by how much time you’ve been spending with brain. But I also know you guys are doing great things, and I wish I could play more of a part in it.

            It’s not entirely true we don’t see each other, anymore. In fact, just today, we caught a glimpse of each other’s eyes, when you mastered that song on the guitar. We waved at one another, remember? But then you got distracted and left. It’s fine, though. It didn’t sting as bad as it has in the past.

           I’ve got to be completely honest about something- got to get something off my chest. I’m still in pain about our encounter two nights ago.

           I was in that poem with you, friend. We worked so hard on it- remember how we lost track of time and the hours glided by like curls of fog in the wind. But you put it away. You crumpled it up and put it in the trash, and for just a moment it felt like you were taking me, and crumpling up me, and tossing me in that trash bin. That hurt.

           I still enjoy your company and sometimes wonder if you enjoy mine,

Heart

Dear heart,

I’m not sure what to say.

Brain hated it. He talked about how people would start to view me as over dramatic or mentally unstable.

I’m sorry.  Maybe brain and I don’t get along as well as I thought.

Sincerely,

Tyler

Dear Tyler,

Stop freaking writing notes to your heart. You have homework.

Goodness,

Brain

I Remember Watching Her Break

We’re all humans. Why are some people so brutal?

17 years old.  She cries to me, because she hates herself. She feels so disconnected. So hated. She tells me that her life feels worthless to her. I can’t tell if she actually means it. I worry for her. I’d do anything for her.

16. Her bulimia has almost got the best of her. I’m not sure what to tell her accept a cliché , “You’re perfect the way you are, Bailey.” Because it’s not like I need more than one bandage to reattach a heart.

15. Her words cut into me- our first real argument- and I don’t go to school the next day. I can’t help but wonder how she got to be so harsh.

14. I start talking with the pretty girl in the back, who likes my best friend. She’s changed a little from when I last knew her. Still doesn’t have many friends, and struggles to reach out.

13.

12. She looks happy.

11.

10. She doesn’t fit in.

9. A boy yells, “Bailey licked the water fountain!” Everybody laughs and moves over to the fountain that she didn’t ‘lick’. I know she didn’t actually lick it, but I wait in the longer line, anyway. She cries in the corner.

8. I see a boy push her over

8.  Five guys start the chant, “Ug-ly Bai-ly, Ug-ly Bai-ly, Ug-ly Bai-ly”. I can see how she is wilting.

8. They make fun of her for having cheerio breath.

8. The teachers don’t say anything

8.Like a shadow, I don’t say anything. Like I could ever cast my vote, simply as “present”.

                                                “Present” isn’t a vote.

7.

6. First grade. I meet a happy little girl in a happy little dress.

She looks friendly

, but I decide not to talk to her.

…She’s just a little too quirky for my first grade, egocentric eyes.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1. I didn’t know her before first grade, but she tells me that she was happy-

 just as little kids are

Before the humans,

-Violent and Critical,

Broke Her,

As though

she wasn’t

one

of

us.

Riptide

By Hector Vance

I once got caught in a riptide

My feet yanked out from under me,

salt water stinging my eyes, my hands dragging across the sand.

I once got caught in a riptide,

A question like, “Do you love me?’ was a disgusting profanity, a curl of water that pulled my view from the shore.

I once got caught in a riptide

It was only after it violently wrenched my heart in half that I understood it was called a RIPtide.

I once got caught in a riptide.

The halls were crevasses and the classrooms were caves, and yet, although it seemed like there would be handholds- the only person holding my hand was the sick grasp of death.

I once got caught in a riptide.

I speak for that screaming moment when they bowed their heads, and my head went stiff , my eyes stuck open, I couldn’t do anything but glare, and I prefer to think that was never glaring at god,  but when I was young I learned that god was ubiquitous so if I scream at the sky, or sing to my friend in the ground,  god hears every word, every thought.

It’s a riptide

Riptide.

I once got caught in a riptide.

I once got caught in a riptide.

Riptide.

I once got caught in a riptide.

I once got caught in a riptide.

We all came into this world screaming.

Hector Vance

I never wrote an introduction.

“A single, solitary figure creaked back in his rocking chair amongst an utterly empty room, except for the large brick fireplace shoved tightly against far wall. Ash stained and broken, it towered over the frail man like a roaring giant.”

I never could quite emulate the greats- Alta June, Nutella Waffles, Beatrice Macandless.

“His name was Hector Vance, but he HATED the name Hector Vance. Like poison to his lips. It was bad memories and broken relationships; the reason he hated the world.”

I never wanted to reveal my pen name.

“He was a creaky, stingy, elderly, rotted fellow and often very much minded being recognized as such.”

 I never will understand why I have such a connection to Hector Vance.

“The world is full of insane people, Vance thought, each one having their own dangerous wants and wishes. Life is a horror film and mine is a story about one man and a whole lot of blood-thirsty mutts.”

Truth is...
Hector Vance was a character in one of my novels-
A novel that only lasted twenty four pages- yet still had the depth to
successfully carry an entire character on its shoulders.

I never got to write Hector's story.
Not until now

I am Hector Vance
MY story is not written yet,
But I will get to see my book, read it front to back,
 slowing down only at the sweet moments.
The butterflies in my stomach, the tie around my neck, the
starvation for knowledge

Growing old
And staying happy even still.

                Soon enough I won’t be Hector Vance.

                Soon enough my story will develop enough to make a new character.

                                Tyler Cook.

                                      And honestly, I think that that character should be a bit more interesting.

“Sure, you’re strong in stature, but, my friend, your mind is weak.” 

Hector yawned, “I like to think people change,

                                                                                … Don’t you?”

By: Hector Vance

Her Eyes

I fear…

I fear you

                                I fear your soft brown eyes,

                I fear the way they make me feel,

                I fear the way you think, the way you peer to the future with them, the way you pass me in the halls- your stone cold eyes being dragged around by ropes and levers, because they're far too heavy for you to hold all by yourself.

                Your eyes are nets that I can’t help but get caught in- even when you don’t look at me.

                                But I fear…

                I fear the way you hate them.

                You once joked that you thought they were the color of crap, and didn’t let me respond because you knew I’d say some forced broken complement.

                But now I offer you my compliment- so utterly not broken.

                You’re eyes are a song.

            You’re eyes are dreams, so deep that I could spend hours wandering through them. Sure, sometimes they don’t make sense. Sometimes things happen that I don’t count on- sometimes it just feels like a haze, but all the time I wander through them, regardless.

                You’re eyes captivate me.

                Your eyes feel sacred- Maybe that’s why you don’t let people stare into them too long. Maybe that’s why it feels like I’m being excommunicated every time I catch a glimpse into your soul.

                                But I know you fear, also ..

                Yes, I see your eyes are afraid.

I see that you can’t hold your gaze with anyone, but maybe your eyes falter because, in the night while mine rest, yours are skipping between your real life and that fake one we never talk about.

That one where you’re happy

The one where you’re yourself.

                But I’m STILL afraid..

I’m afraid, because when I look into your eyes- with the oceans and the nets and the dreams and the worlds and the deep meanings, beyond beautiful almond colored iris's, I Don’t See...

I don't see me.

 -HV