Posted on by Trevor Elms

Homesick.

Keeping right in theme of my School piece posted this morning — I present a poem I wrote in September, 2008. I believe this is the very first thing I wrote when I first got to Hawai’i.

The impact of this poem is still there with me. I wish I had better kept in touch like I planned, but such is life.

Homesick.

Where I found myself, is not where I am now.

Where I am now, is not what it was then.

I am happy here, maybe moreso.
But I can still look over my shoulder,
and hope there’s one of you there.

We rise in September,
And don’t fall in the summer.

I love the weather, my new friendships, and my school.
And in the end, as the sun creeps slowly down the horizon.

My mind loves to wander towards every little moment,

I spent in the alley,
I spent at the 19th street hill,
I spent in Thailand,
Mexico,

School.

I miss all of you,

And every moment you spent helping me find myself.

I love you Sep kids.
And can’t wait to visit.

 

Looking back, I think this is a fairly positive and calming piece. This was a good time before I began my real descent into madness. The featured photo in this post is the first photo of me in Hawai’i I can find.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Photo taken by Kisa Vanderford, ©2008
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Thoughts.

This was something I wrote August, 2008. I remember sitting in the shade of a tree with the moleskine my group teacher, Leslie, from high school gifted me. One of the greatest gifts ever given to me today.

When she gifted it to me, she told me that I reminded her of Ernest Hemingway. That may be the highest compliment anyone has even given me.

I just sat down to write something, anything, and it ended up being about a girl in the dorms I had a crush on. I can’t remember her name, and she never heard it.

I was feeling very alone and scared at this time. I had just recently moved to Hawai’i and I am a fairly strong introvert. I had not yet met the people who were to become my close friends.

Thoughts.

I plan to finish this whole notebook.

As I sit here writing in the fine lines that fabricate recorded thoughts.
On pre-cognitive set pathways that lead to nowhere.

And nowhere?
Led me somehow through all these pages of turmoil, to you.
Why you?

Because the mind tends to wander to those emotions,
that incite feedom,
and hope.

The burning fire…
colorless,
but with untamed form.

A full frontal force that fascinates the multifaceted shatters,
that are my feelings.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Photo by Trevor Elms ©2008
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Pathways.

November 5th, 2008. One of the more depressing things I have found that I wrote. There’s really no optimism in this whatsoever. At least that I am gleaning from it. I feel like this was when I was really beginning my downward turn. My brother Alan would tell you the same. As later that month when I visited home for Thanksgiving he became very worried about me.

Pathways

Where does this path of mine lead?

It winds,

It twists,

It involves the leaves and the trees.

 

Stumbled have I, at the start.

Too easy is it,

to play when the pathway gets dark.

 

Nightmares of failure and disappointment,

haunt equilibrium and comfort.

 

Hoping the stride here isn’t futile,

Another broken heart.

 

I’m very happy to be taking medication for my bi-polar these days.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 7 Comments

Better Than Sex.

Two new things today, rather than one old. I got inspired last night to write my first poem in years. A poem about one of my best friends, Tony. I don’t have a picture of him to use, and he wouldn’t want it shown anyways.

I don’t know his last name, because I never cared to ask and he never cared to tell me.

Tony was homeless but boy was our home together in our hearts. Tony gave his life for me and I will never forget him for it.

Better Than Sex.

Remember that time you told me shooting up was better than sex?

How the needle would make you feel inside, when you would flex.

This may be the most important thing anyone ever told me,

Meth, Coke, H, etcetera, or Ex. I tried it all, except for the next,

 

Level,

Shooting it into a vein,

I felt like after Tony told me if I did it,

I’d never be the same.

 

I wish Tony had a chance and became,

something,

more than a man who gave his life for me, and proved to me, a virgin my vein,

would take no blame.

 

Tony passed in an embarrassing way,

He was in the dorm bath-room,

needle in his arm.

Head cocked back with saliva to drip — on the floor soon.

 

I wish there was something I could say,

or do,

to bring you,

back.

 

You had a way,

of kindness and beauty,

that people with, and you without,

wished they could find out.

 

Tony thank you for telling me,

That I should never shoot into my veins,

Because without you selling that to me,

I’m not sure I’d be here,

Just the same.

 

If it’s better than sex,

I don’t want to know its name.

 

R.I.P. Tony, I miss you. 

 

Thank you for reading.

©2017 Trevor Elms
Photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2008
Recording features Classical Loop by 4barrelcarb (c) copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/4barrelcarb/54992 Ft: N/A
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Former Self.

Something I wrote March 2nd, 2010. I think at the time I was feeling pretty abandoned by a lot of my friends because we didn’t have much in common anymore. I had to be sober due to legal and mental problems, and they did not want to subject me to any substances that could hurt my recovery.

I know now that they were just trying to support me in the best way they could, but that doesn’t mean that in that time it didn’t hurt. I do not hold on to these feelings any longer, but I feel like reflecting on this piece and by extension our lives — can teach us something.

Former Self.

I find it funny,
That my family and my girl are the only ones who see me for me.

Not who I was while smokin’ trees,

I kinda like feelin’ the breeze,

to fall and heal a scrape on my knees.

What is it with people and the falseness they precede to breathe?

A fakeness that presides to feed into selfishness and greed of this once arrogant steed.

He used to need,

now the mind’s open and free, 

the crises left to a solid creed.


Leaving behind those breaching the void,

with a broken future to avoid.

Annul this boy of his past’s ploys for he paints a bright picture he now deploys.

 

Unsure of the moist sponge in his hands, the picture has now plunged into a plan, facets collide and make a stand.

 

See me for me.

And not the former self canned.

 

It seems my plan worked. I no longer recognize the person featured in the photo as myself. Photographer unknown, but I believe it was one of my friends whom we consider ourselves Ohana — they know who they are.

Thank you for reading.

©2010 Trevor Elms

 

Posted on by Trevor Elms · 5 Comments

Stubborn Heart Part Two.

This was something I wrote shortly after first meeting my wife. March 5th, 2009. There was a woman in my life who had captivated me more than any other at that point.

I had finally found someone who could take her place and so wrote this. She has read it, we are no longer in touch.

There is a line in there similar to my wedding vows. I did not know until recently re-reading this poem. I think it shows consistency in what I was looking for in a partner.

Stubborn Heart Part Two.

To you, to the one who may have lost me.

To the one I will love for the rest of my life.

I miss you now,

I missed you then,

And I will miss you soon.

I miss your smile, the cute one, where your lip curls a bit and you look like a turtle.

I miss that curly hair of yours, the tight spirals tend to draw me right into those eyes.

Yeah, the blue ones you had to remind me about that one time.

Those orbs of crystalline blue that pierce my heart.

And your hands?

Damn babe, the first time I held one I felt self-confidence for the first time!

Girl everything about your body puts my head in a swirl,

But that’s not what I miss the most.

You, your presence, what you bring to me when I’m around you.

Baby you lift me up, enlighten my day, and make each and every second better than the last.

I miss you now,

I missed you then,

And I will miss you soon.

I feel as I leave, a piece of me will be left behind, I leave it here, with you, in this poem.

And I will take with me my love for you.

But don’t think I’ll forget what you do to my head,

Girl you can make my blood boil!

And I still need to see you.

You can make me punch holes in metal doors!

And I still think about you seconds before I fall asleep.

You are my rock, sponge, barrier, arch-nemesis, friend,

and the only true-love I have known in life so far.

I love you.

I do and don’t want to find someone else.

But I don’t have to be a Bridesman you know,

Sometimes as we get older we can support the needs of those we love better.

I know I can treat a girl much better now than when I was a

Freshman, Virgin, self-hating… well I’m still a nerd though.

I know you will miss me as I do you.

So I may be out of sight, but I am always with you.

I miss you now,

I missed you then,

And I will miss you soon.

 

Thank you for reading.

©2009 Trevor Elms
Photo by Megan Elms
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 4 Comments

Rude Awakening.

This was a writing prompt for my writing class in my freshman and only year at the University of Hawai’i. I didn’t even complete but a semester.

September 22nd, 2008 — It’s interesting to look back and see that I was already in a downward spiral at the time. I was very confused and had no idea what to do with myself. So I was taking the time to explore life, my body, and my mind in all ways that I could get a sense of adventure — as well as experience beyond the walls of accepted society.

The picture featured in this post was taken 5 days before the writing of this poem. I was not remotely sober. This was just months before my mental break with reality.

Rude Awakening

Not once did I have a second thought,
I would succeed!
I’ll show them.

Now I sweat as I sleep,
shivering, shirtless, and scared.

Afraid all I ever told myself…
were excuses for my unbalanced, unregimented,
LAZY
ways.

I thought I was mature and ready,
but seems my bones are all that’s fully grown.
I feel disgrace, disappointment… and distant from home.
I realized how much I missed my own mother,
While having to conquer a fever alone.

I know what I have to do,
it’s quite simple and straightforward,
the question is not if I can,
it’s if I will.
I can try.
That’s all I’ve ever said… it amounted to nothing but lying in bed.

I hate myself for these ways I’ve created!
it’s as if I’m not failing my desires aren’t sated!

Never interested; always dreaming.
seething, teeming with ideas.
useless to those who don’t listen.
So what does a lazy troublemaker do?
He breaks habits and carves his way through.

I still haven’t broken some of those habits, and I certainly didn’t at the time of this writing, but I was at least acknowledging them at the time.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
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Gears of Change.

This was a writing assignment from my senior year in High School, a slam poetry writing prompt that needed to be based on voting. This was in 2008 before President Obama’s election. Really interesting to see where my head was at, and then think about that I didn’t go on to officially start voting until this past election.

Looking back, I think it is the President’s #1 job to leave the nation in a better place than when he took the job. This is not a political space nor will it ever be, but I do think in a lot of ways he accomplished that. I just wish he did better about getting us out of the middle-east like was promised to my teenage self.

Gears of Change.

The river is calm,
it’s about to change direction.
The mountains are quiet;
an avalanche will reshape the land.
The herd is steady,
stampede is imminent.

The gears of change are oiled and ready.

But are the cogs between the nations?
Will this change be of hope? Progress?
Or of futility and shame?

For the billions of stars in the sky,
there are fifty.
Fifty that are on edge.
What will those united do?
To correct a wrong,
To establish hope once again
that the red white and blue stand for
Justice, freedom, and liberty.

We are hated
Despised
Mocked
Powerful
Free
And lost

Lost to the power of freedom.
Everyone must be free!
Under the rule of, red tanks
White bombs
And blue blazes.

We are disconnected from an infection on the people of the middle-east.
An infection of bomb shrapnel
in a child’s chest.
An infection of bodies crushed
by fallen debris.

Burned bloodied and bruised by a democratic hand of liberty dripping in the blood of 4077 of its own children.

After the towers that reached the sky fell, we stood tall.
Seven years later some barely remember the exact year they fell.

The eradication of terrorism was used as an excuse to render an opinion of evil powerless and gain control of liquid gold.

Lady liberty cries “Welcome.” Somberly as the broad striped doors begin to close behind her.

But the sun is getting brighter.
The river is whispering.
The mountains can hear the echoes.
And the herd? It’s tense.
Ready to stampede into the hands of every person willing to make a change.

And if you are for that change,
That hope.

Bust down that fuckin’ dam!
Scream in the mountains ‘til they crumble!
And stampede with me!

Vote for change
Vote for your country
And vote for yourself.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Posted on by Trevor Elms

Shrinking Doubts.

This was written April 18th, 2009. I’m not entirely sure what decision I was writing about here, but I know it was one that I took that changed my life forever. It probably had to do with my budding relationship at the time as I used to use that for inspiration.

Shrinking Doubts.

So I teeter here,
at the edge of an endless cliff.

Toes, dangling ever so dangerously off the edge.
Every day, the place I stand dwindles down,
crumb by crumb.
Bringing the imminent plunge nearer by the minute.

I could leap in blind faith…
But it’s apprehension, uncertainty, and fear, that stills my fall.
Unfortunately,
it will only last so long.
Eventually, my fortress will crumble.

And the descent I would face?

Well, fate holds all the cards at that point.

©2009 Trevor Elms
Posted on by Trevor Elms · 2 Comments

Pearl Street.

A rhyme I wrote August 26th, 2008 after spending a night at the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, CO with one of my high school friends.

If I remember correctly we ate quite a few magic mushrooms that night. This was the part of that day that left the largest impression on me. I still remember the exchange with that man vividly.

There’s a line in there that doesn’t make sense, really, but it works at the end of the day and I want to preserve these older things as they were rather than edit them.

Pearl Street.

I met this man on the street somewhere.
He was slumped, broken, and had long-blonde hair.
I said to him, just sitting there.
“What’s got you down? You look of a housebroken mare.”
His eyes fluttered and opened half-way,
his head-shake suddenly reduced to a sway.
The man groaned
“Please don’t fuck a porcupine today!”
I smiled, and said with a chuckle.
“You’ve got me intrigued… if I see one, I just may unbuckle!”
And that is a common occurrence on the Pearl Street Mall.
Boulder is one of the best cities, of them all.

©2008 Trevor Elms