Path

Choking adolescence:
sent wet memories to my brain
burning pictures of lost love and past hate,
of brain washing and the painful truth.
The muddy waters of experiences
flowing straight, pass narrow turns
flood gating, finally, into a deep dry pond.
Pebbles of lost emotions
creating ripples of confusion and disillusion
annoy me.

I did not know my purpose in life
or why I was even here.
In fact, I was so totally lost
my tunnel vision has seemingly no end.
I wanted a purpose for being here.
The fusion between right and wrong,
love and hate, black and white, love and lust,
trust and respect, (and yes even)
what you see in me and what I see in myself
need to be re-wielded together
to replace the large crack that was beginning
to widen my shifting place value.

One minute I knew everything
the next I was told I knew nothing.
I needed manhood (or time) to set me free.
I thought I had reached it by now:
I was dead wrong.

1995, Ben Bisbee

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I had to know this wasn’t great just seconds after I wrote it, right? Probably not. 25 years ago, I likely thought it was very smart, very poetic and sound. I’m fairly sure this was a poem about my Dad in many ways. And in other ways, I think it was also about my depression that I started to experience in extreme, new ways when I left for college. Either way, it’s just trying so damn hard. Too hard. It weirdly bums me out to read this and share this, but in other ways, I know these feelings and I know that back in 1995, I felt this and wanted to express something that others could relate to. But all the same, yuck. Just yuck.