The Enneagram: Day 26, Looking for Words

Every single night this week I haven't been able to sleep. I'm just lying in bed with this empty feeling that I need to express, but I can't put into words. I'm frustrated. With what?

I don't feel like I'm connecting to my Enneagram project.

I saw Jei's blogpost on how he plans to make the documentary about him and his family, so honest. And what am I doing? Making songs based of my mental conceptions of what I believe a certain person to be. There's a distance, not only between me and the music, but between me and my understanding of others.

When I don't know how I feel or when I can't sleep, I usually try to write poetry. I opened the notebook on my bedstand and looked through some of the pages. As I reread my past writings, I amazed myself. Although many of the poems were strict to rhythm and somewhat trite, they used such rich vocabulary, and such great rhymes. It's the kind of things where slight revision could make them great.

One of them I found was called "Ode to a Past Friend"

It's funny to look and think

How at one time we used to be linked

By friendship

I suppose as we grow old

Our bond goes cold 

And withers

At one time you were like the rest

Awkward, insecure

Strange but lovable demure

I suppose as the quiet one

It makes you the one to deserve a better friend

I tried my best 

But it was the end

You changed your hair

You changed your name

You changed your face

You changed your game

And as that makeup gives you veil

Your insides become more stale

Until you become black and hollow

As you glare with shadowed eyes

I catch of glimpse of blue

And cold

I guess is goes

As we grow old

Those faithful eyes of gold

For what was probably 12 AM at night, I'd say that ain't such a bad poem. I found another one which was a lot shorter, but said quite a lot.

Each day I live inside a box

I try to scream

No one talks

I try to find a sure escape

I bang the box

It calls me lame

I try to make a little hold

So I can see

Or maybe more

But all that I can do is breathe

It's much too tough

I'll never leave

I always feel so much more connected to myself when I write straight than when I write with music. It's so easy to hide when you play music. As long as the words you say sound good, it doesn't matter as much what they are or what they mean. I could read a paragraph from a textbook in rhythm and it'd probably work.

In poetry and other writing though, it's different. It's just you. The only place to hide is behind rhyme and rhythm, and you have to provide the words. It's like fitting pieces to a puzzle to get the exact phrase the way you want it to.

I try to incorporate this kind of stuff into my songwriting, but it's so difficult. It's either too blatant or too obscure. Certain words don't sound good when sung. In addition to making a story I also have to worry about the music being at least vaguely interesting.

Not to mention that at this moment, I don't even know what I'm so upset about. It's probably just hormones. Being a teenager is so difficult. You're filled with emotional feelings you don't know how to understand and sexual feelings you're not allowed to express. You've gained enough knowledge about the world to realize how such a miserable place it is, but not enough knowledge to know how to cope with it. You feel empty all the time, but you don't know how to fill the hole.

I guess I'm supposed to find songs to write from this empty hole in my heart. But as I feel empty in myself, all I get from my songs is nothing.