i'm still me preface

my fourth full-length poetry album, "i'm still me," is my longest one yet with 12 poems. a lot of different things happened in my life between this album and my last few albums, so i wanted to write about some of those things, and i knew from the jump, seeing as how i was doing so much drafting and writing in general, that i wanted to make this album longer than any of my others. i'm really excited about it, though, it's definitely a special project for me. here's the listing of each poem, and again, i won't explain what they're about. i want to leave it to your imagination:

1. what if

2. confidence

3. centralization

4. perfect

5. runner

6. walls

7. happy thoughts

8. knee-deep

9. uncertainty

10. famous

11. i'm still me

12. i hope (you will)

5. myjae's poem

what even happened to me?
the perfect,
kind-hearted little boy
that put everyone
before him
to bring happiness?

well, what hardened him?
was it the people he met
at his ex-job?
were the tabloids
blowing up?
is someone gone?
why do you keep
hurting yourself?

for a minute,
i couldn’t even
recognize you,
behind the wear and tear,
the fear, the discomfort,
the lack of enthusiasm,
it’s just not right.

why do i have
to be this way?
can’t i go back
to who i was
before life got hard,
everything got thrown at me,
and even the sunniest days
felt dreary and dark?

“i don’t even want
to leave my house,
i want to stay in my room
with no interactions.
keep people
out of my room,
and don’t try to get help.”
that’s not me,
but it’s what comes out
when i speak.

someone, fix me.

4. alexandra's poem

everything changes,
that’s what we’re told,
and it’s true.

you tend to miss
the carefree days
of being five years old,
playing your ps2,
watching blue’s clues,
and playing along to
whatever you can.
those magical days
where your homework
resolved around coloring
and solving mazes.

you’d be shocked
how much things change
over time:
2+2=4
changes into
y=mx+b,
free education
stops being a thing
once you’re legal,
part-time jobs
cause even more
emotional stress
than they need to,
and some of those
closest to you
leave sooner than you
want them to.

oh, and remember
that girl who had cooties?
yeah, the one you
ran away from
in first grade
because she wanted
to kiss you?
you said no because
of cooties, right?
well, guess what?
she may have been
the one that loved you
more than anything,
but now it’s gone:
she has a boyfriend,
soon to be engaged,
and you,
spending your life single,
wish every day
for your new crush
to notice you.

it can hurt,
watching everything change
in the blink of an eye.
but you’ve gotta approach it
with finesse,
because life is too short
to waste on the
sad and the frustrating.
it’s scary,
but it depends on how
you approach it.

and at 19, it’s tough,
but i think you can do it.

3. sean's poem

as my exhaustion grows,
i chase after
those beautiful moments
that may be implausible,
but in the other world,
anything goes.
all you need
is your imagination
to bring you back
to the most wonderful times
or to put you
in the hypothetical scenarios
you wildly long for.

but the other world
has its drawbacks:
sometimes those moments
that it creates for you
are not so beautiful,
instead they’re dark
and dreary,
maybe even scary,
and they leave you
in a restless state,
not wanting to count sheep
but not wanting to close your eyes,
for fear you’ll return
to the dark side
of the other world.

it’s never something
you know will happen:
you pray for the best
before the light shuts off
and the REM begins,
and as your thoughts swirl,
you hope once and for all
that a good memory gets picked
so the light side of the other world
gets a special guest.

sweet dreams.

2. chris's poem

well, isn’t that strange.
you guys don’t talk anymore?
you used to be
peas in a pod,
woody and buzz,
timon and pumbaa,
spongebob and patrick,
it was a bond
that you couldn’t break
no matter what you used.
so what happened?

maybe it was you,
hanging around with others,
changing the way you act
and fitting more with them.
maybe you two
were more different
than you initially thought
and it drove you away
to another group.

or maybe it was them,
acting like they were
your entire life,
and that having friends
other than them
was not to be tolerated.
wanting to be
head honcho,
the royalty atop the throne,
they couldn’t stand to see it.
you? with someone else?
couldn’t be!

or, ya know,
maybe you both had issues
that the other couldn’t solve.
maybe you guys
just weren’t meant
to be that close
and learning about each other
more and more
took all the love away.

it happens,
sometimes people
try to make it work,
but they just can’t.
it’s humbling, though,
it gives you some time
to work on yourself
and realize that
you could be better tomorrow
than you are today,
so that one day,
you and that friend
will get things back on track.

1. faheem's poem

what do we make
of the world that we
live in?
we used to think
“fitting in” with the crowd
was the root of all evil,
but is it?
what’s wrong with a little
normality?
and what’s with everything
being compared to
the old stuff?

“back in my day,
we had none of this here
autotuned music!!!
all you kids are just
buried in your smartphones!
back in my day,
we didn’t need no calculators
to do our math homework,
we were just that smart!!!”

well,
what’s wrong with autotune?
it’s not always a crutch,
there’s beauty to it,
it allows for artistic expression,
unique-sounding music,
what’s so wrong with that?

our smartphones
might be addicting,
but there’s so much
to explore on them.
why wouldn’t we
bury our faces
when all the info
in the world
is in the palm
of our hands?

and as for that
calculator comment…
well, we’d love to
get off our calculators
if you took time to realize
there’s more to life
than getting a high mark
in your math class,
especially when your career
requires no math class
and you’re drowning
in crippling debt.

whoa, mood whiplash.
cut, flip the tape, go again.

society is a wild beast.
you can never tame it,
you can never give it
a straight answer,
you can never
get a 100
in its class,
but what you can do
is make it all yours
and fit it to your desires.
there’s no right answer
on how society functions,
it’s just how you interpret it.

so what do you see?

the people's poetry preface

this was a plan that i had for quite some time: a poetry album/mini-album where i write about topics suggested to me by others. all of the poems were named after the people who suggested them. i won't tell you guys what the topics were (i'll just have you figure them out on your own), but here's the order of the poems:

1. faheem's poem

2. chris's poem

3. sean's poem

4. alexandra's poem

5. myjae's poem