Thoughts no longer my Own.

It's midnight now. Just musing over what ever became of the scores of poems I made in my youth - especially high school - the loneliest time of my life. I was a modern day Edgar Allen Poe. Ok, I'll stop. Not even close, but my best works were composed during those years. I thought I was so deep and in control back then, but when I think about it - I was scared mute. Petrified of what others might do in response to my thoughts - thoughts that had not entirely defined me, but took enough space in the morsels of my mind to be seen as interests.

I wore a smug, stern look on my face constantly to dissuade people from getting too close to me. At times, when I desired to be someone's friend - I would act in a manner that would drive them further from me, if they even approached me. Terse remarks, simple smirks, and the occasional nonchalantly-delivered sarcasm came their way from me, because I was horrified of some truth about me being shown. My demeanor resembled a DragonBall Z character named Vegeta without the spikey yellow hair and the tights. Around this time, I saw nothing remotely interesting or attractive about myself. I sulked about my self-inflicted solitude on the way to class and stared forward at the teacher from beginning to end until the last years of high school, when I felt more at ease to fool around with discretion, of course. I think I caught that senior bug, even though I denied it, then.

Here, I marvel at a forgotten message on the inside cover of my Yearbook, "You've always motivated me in a sense because of your determination and ambition. Stay a good kid, I guarantee you'll be successful in life. God will bless a kid like you for all your hard work. Remember everyone who puts you down is just jealous of you. Stay up. Keep in touch." But I never liked you I thought. We rarely talked. Well, actually, you would talk and I would give you ear, but I was waiting for my stop to get off the bus to leave the torment of your uninvited narrative of your feuds with your parents and the stinging stench of the lit weed in your breath. Upon that moment of release, I would merely say get home safe and not give you a moment's thought until I smelt another blunt the next morning. But I never was good. I would watch obscene things late at night and hate myself in the morning for what I had done. But I never thought of my successes. I was just doing this thing called school work, because that's all I knew. I wasn't really motivated by anything except my fear of disappointing the authority figures in my life. Wasn't my childhood going to go on forever, anyway? You see I was relatively dumb. Perhaps I still am. But I was jealous of them for having what I felt I could never have... a friend of my dreams. A friend you would find in that cartoon Doug or the old Disney series The Famous Jet Jackson... just by your side through the proverbial "thick and thin." But how could God bless someone like me? To me, he didn't know me so he didn't know what he was talking about.

Hmm, I saw him a year ago near my college, but didn't approach him. I think the remnants of being private and not being associated with folks I find socially unattractive is a demon I am slowly killing. I will and I have. Sigh. I hope the morning comes soon. I can't sleep. I wish I can meet you again and say hello. You were more a friend than I was. Yes, we will keep in touch, one day.

Thoughts Not My Own by the Curtis Brothers Quartet. Enjoy.