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Scattered.

Something I wrote September 17th, 2008. This, for me, may be the most beautiful poem I have ever written. I am not sure if I am capable of writing anything like this ever again, and it pains me.

I was so terribly broken when I wrote this. I wrote in this poem what writing means to me in a way that actively makes me feel the pain I was feeling — and how writing wouldn’t help, no matter how hard I tried.

Scattered.

I thought it was gone,
but now it’s come back.

As I lay down, my thoughts begin to snap.

I cannot find the peace and tranquility —
that is to thrive in dream-filled continuity.

Then to pass the time away,
scribbling, scratching, thoughts — ’til I decay.

I eventually crash when the sun arises,
a new day.

Though I despise this repetition,
what I reap in reprisal is refinement.

Reflectively recording all rational thought.

On scattered shreds of my soul…

 

I wrote recently about gaining my love for music back, and I did also write my first poem in years the other day. However I have not yet unlocked poetry within me. I need that again, it’s my favorite thing about language.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by John Elms ©2014
Posted on by Trevor Elms

Don’t Run.

A piece I wrote October 2nd, 2008. I think I wrote this after a disagreement with my parents about something. I got super upset and was called “angry man” again.

For the longest time I thought the way I was expressing myself was okay, and this poem is proof of that. There’s an idea within this poem that is good — but there is still a level of health and safety when it comes to expressing ourselves that I was not capable of at the time.

It’s interesting to look back and literally see me writing about my bi-polar without being able to understand or accept its existence.

Don’t Run.

Emotions ebb and flow, you can’t control where they go —
depression, anger, sadness, they flip flop to and fro.

Frustration fails to forest freedom frequently,
fundamentally factualizing my frequency.

Killin’ and fillin’ me with doubts,
sometimes it feels I got a good-day drought.

But I won’t pout.

I may be drunk, trippin’, or in a six-round bout,

’cause I live life to the fullest, and isn’t that what it’s all about?

I have my morals my friends and my brain,
shit one day I may have some fame.

But as I stand now not every day is the same.

I live, love, and have fun.
And these emotions of mine, I don’t run from.

Thank you for reading.

©2008 Trevor Elms
Featured photo by Trevor Elms ©2016
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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
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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

 

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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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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
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What’s Fair?

Written February 19th, 2009. This was not long after my mental break with reality and subsequent legal difficulties. Again, powerful for me to see where my head was at that time. It seems I was determined to learn from my mistakes and I am very happy that I did.

What’s Fair?

I’ve been told life isn’t fair.

Events have passed that seemingly?
Prove this theory with unbridled flair.
But,
I’ve also been told that suffering is a fraction of the path.
It’s overcoming these hurdles,
that sows greener grass.

Every waking moment reaps:
Torment
Agony
Fright
Wrath
All over what goes bump the night.

Hopefully?
The future I see when my eyelids shut,
stays a nightmare.

Losing one’s mind is not as fun as some think.
When I hear “Jinglebells”
It wanders to that incessant clink.

When reality is spun to creativity’s dimension.

Friends become foes,
words become sentences,
places… worlds.

When reality is spun to creativity’s dementia.

Living in fear it could all repeat now and between,
the night dreams became reality
and reality?
A dream.
Tormented forever.

And I’m only nineteen.

©2009 — Trevor Elms
Featured photo taken by Trevor Elms ©2009.
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Gotten.

Written May 18th, 2009 for my current girlfriend and now wife, Megan Elms.

Gotten

I thought you were different,
Now I know you are,
You haven’t run, my rising star.
Making a choice, to care from afar,
I know it ain’t easy where we’ve set the bar.

It’s not that simple when neither settles for par.
However we know,
That the way the wind blows,
Goes to show, the wonder we’ll sow.

Ghost of future, and of past,
You’ve chosen me, never outclassed,
I give myself, the untarnished brass.
For though it’s not gold, silver, or platinum,
It’s known that others who claim, are but a fraction.
Voice of silk, and emotions of passion,
It’s not that you’re caught, but I’m done with the catchin’.
We’ve mixed and felt, and done our matchin’

It’s not that I was lost,
However, I’ve finally been found,
Appreciated and held, so profound.
And when this poem comes around,
I’ll know you’re with me safe and sound.

©2009 Trevor Elms
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Out.

A rhyme I wrote on October 26th, 2009.

If I remember correctly this is about me reflecting on a checkered past that wasn’t so much in the past at that point. I was dealing with the repercussions of some unsavory choices and had to learn some hard truths about life.

I’m glad to know that I had this viewpoint back then, because I am uncertain that I would be here now without it. I think the start was honestly that I really just liked the first line, and still do, a lot.

Out.

An invisible dirigible indivisible by fractions of time,
walked the walk and crossed the line.

Define what it is that wades in the wasted mind —
committed crimes and fined a kind toll,
Feels special to be out instead of in like a mole.

What’s it to the crow analyzing, interpreting, picking apart the soul?
Can you pick it up and re-mold the dough?
Take it bold and slow,
flow the strings together and carefully sew.
Care carnivorously,
Possibly persevere,
Desire the farther or could be near.

Suffer through the fear, it ain’t a problem.
Look at you, you got a job son.
It’s a fissure, nah it’s a crack,
Look into yourself,
Black?
No it’s blue, you got the style of a pure man through and through.
Bullshit doesn’t touch those with a plan,
Look at you son, today you’re a man.

An invisible dirigible indivisible by fractions of time,
walked the walk and crossed the line.

©2009 Trevor Elms