Existential Breakdown

Stole a soul and here I am:

walking about the streets

looking for personalities that suit me.

Ever meet a person

so captivating

you wanna talk like them?

Ever catch yourself

using your dad’s favorite catchphrase?

“Can't wait for tomorrow, cuz I get better looking everyday.”

Reading up online

what a perfect posture looks like;

sitting at the dinner table next week

when someone says, “feeling tense?”

Or wear a hat you like

but all day you see yourself

in windows and automatic doors—

what an idiot.

Look at yourself:

examining and picking yourself apart, man—

placing it next to that perfect moment

you've witnessed in other people.

Oh boy, nothing natural can be helped,

and all the unnatural shit

is so controlled, and then here we are

coming up with subtle ways to blend

the things we want to be with who we are—

rocking that leather jacket,

but I cried at the end of Bicentennial Man—

Jesus Christ.

Romanticism was a freeing of the ego

and to be eccentric was to be desire.

Ok.

But what is freedom?

I have a kind of answer—eh, well, here:

so much of freedom has been

perception

of how another perceives

us as an individual.

Freedom?

I wonder if freedom could be

a giving up to others? A laying bare?

Not a “look at my life and

what I can do,” but

here I am: my flaws and suffering,

my joys, my everything—take it!

Take it from me and love it!

abuse it! manipulate it! cherish it!

I'm not a puppet!

I cannot hide and you cannot deny.

Am I an individual then?

Is that selfish?

The nature of it all is contradictory:

that’s freedom.

Freedom to fuck up and apologize.

Freedom to own up and let go.

Freedom to love and hate—but...

I wouldn't hate anything.

Maybe it's opportunity, too, but,

you never know until you know.

Every second is a chance to change—

stumbling and bumbling

and on and on all through life:

suddenly, everything you've expected—well,

walk slow. You'll see something you've never seen before.

That's life.

You will never unsee it. You will never

unthink it. You will be faced

with yourself in the world.