Every few weeks/months/years I will revisit books, music & movies that have had subconscious impacts on my mind. Lately, I’ve been focusing on books, as this format tends to surprise me the most, hence I am drawn to it a bit more. I was reading past journal entries & was reminded of how much I quoted early books from Henry Rollins, specifically See A Grown Man Cry & Now Watch Him Die. When I first read those years ago, it was definitely during a very impressionable time period. I had split from a woman, someone I felt like I truly did care for. All of it had such a negative impact on me, yet reading those books actually put that whole time period into an overwhelming sense of clarity, despite the harshness & extreme mental violence contained in those texts. I’ve recently been rereading those books, & as expected, those words still have meaning, relevance & weight to this day. You could take this in a number of stark ways: either I haven’t moved on from certain mindsets, or I am better able to deal with societal trauma. If both could be mixed, then I think it’s much easier to understand those printed words.

Some choice passages that brought back both the feeling of loss & the sense of power (believe me, there are hundreds of passages worth quoting):

It was all in my mind
You were never there at all
I wanted you to be though
When you would smile at me
It made up for years of wounds
They didn’t matter
Now I see that it was just me
Losing my mind again
__________

Anything for a rockstar
I was wrong, I thought you were different
I let down my guard
I thought it was your kindness that was drawing me out
I was just walking the plank
Talking like a fool trying to get it all out of me
Peeling my skin off & cutting myself to pieces
And then you asked me if I wanted a ride to the hotel
I said OK
You said: Anything for a rockstar
It became clear that you were just another one of them
You put a quarter in the talk box
I was a good evening of human entertainment
Now you can tell all your friends
You’re all the same to me
__________

You are the reason I don’t want to die all the time
When I am with you life is worth living
Time away from you is strange & full of pain
When I look into your eyes
I can see how life has savaged you
It’s OK if you fall
I will be there to catch you
Anyone that would want to hurt you
Would have to kill me to do it
I will never be able to pound words into lines
To match the velocity of your presence
__________

I would like to lie next to you
Put my face on your neck
Feel your hand on my back
Hear the sound of your steady breathing
As you save me from the darkness
That will someday catch me alone & destroy me