Break Me and Accompaniment (Geist)

Guess who's back.

This is a podcast of the poem as well as a musical piece inspired by it at the end.

That, and I came up with a sweet way to end my podcasts.

Enjoy.

PS Everybody's podcasts are amazing. I got to listen to them all as I chillaxed after getting home today. I lurve YWP.

-Geist

Words 'n' stuff:

Break Me

I.
I doubt myself now.

I look around at the shades of grey at graduation,
the skewed views and jokers and mathematicians,
observing the forms around me in green and white robes,
molding themselves as they progress, becoming the people they want to be,
smelling the pungent stench of adulthood as it slowly
devours them, one by one, a smile on each of their faces as they leap into the abyss.

But I'm not okay.

II.
Today.

I drive my car from the Alumni day parade.
My instrument is in the back.
It isn't even a marching instrument.
Fuck. My arm hurts. Why did I even march?

Stupid, silly boy. Stupid. Fuck.

I hit a bump in the backwater road.
The case of the instrument flings open,
the rusty gold and silver flashing in my mirror
as it clanks and screeches to the floor.

Ah, damnit! No, bad, bad.
I pull over, undo my restrictive seatbelt,
and scramble into the back, swearing, cursing,
crying.

III.
The project for the English exam,
done all in pencil,
the lines trailing and twisting away
like my trust in myself.

Scenes of violence and injustice crowd the poster board,
the guillotine in a bloody Paris,
the unwanted preacher in the Congo,
a battle-worn and tired Greek at Troy.

As the severed heads roll into the jeering crowd,
and the rain falls onto the white man's nice clothes,
and the blood drips down from the stolen spear,
There is a single sentence above them all:

"What have I done?"

IV.
As I pick up the instrument from the floor,
and wipe the tears of anger from my face,
I notice a white sheet of paper,
with blue pen framing the computer-printed memories.

I remembered. I printed that poem, just that one.
I printed it because I knew it was special.
And I was right, you know.
I cackle at myself, the car is soundproof.

Not because it was about us, no.
Because I knew it would be gone. I knew it wouldn't remain.
And, hey, I was right about that, too.
Look at you, Geist. You're on a roll, you sonuvabitch.

I began the poem on that memory.
"Once, there was a ghost-"
was violently shredded into the blank space
that was right across from

"Once a girl fell in love with a ghost."

I smile and sob simultaneously.

The tears always have a way of coming back.

V.
I look at the world
and the setting sun
and all the beautiful people
watching the purple clouds float by,

And I refuse to place myself among their ranks.
I'm not one of them, not anymore.
I never saw the world the same way
after that piece of paper.

You are a villain. You are the scourge.
(Those are the sentences I shout at myself in the car.)
You are a terrible excuse for a human being, Geist,
crawl back to your grave and never come back.

And I look out the window again
to get one last glance at the beautiful world
I pushed myself away from,
and as I try to imagine the beautiful people I left behind I think,

"What have I done?"

VI.
And I
am broken.