Fourteen Awful Lines Of English Homework That Justify Why I Never Write Poetry. (but I still kind of liked the message.)

Reach out and touch the air
Feel his gentle breeze flirting with your hair
Let him rest his fingers on your face
Listen to him pass as he runs his race
And when you try and look in his eyes
He'll whisper he was never there

You know what you witnessed, you know it was real
So you write a description of all that you feel
You step outside of your cozy home
A little scared 'cause these feelings are so unknown
And when he carelessly whips it from your hands
Please, please don't be surprised

Your soul was so thirsty with no water in its grip
It wasn't asking for much, just some moisture on its lips
Don't cry, sweetheart, is what you'll be told
But it's hard when every gun goes off you were only supposed to hold
And when you're victim to his icy winter winds
Try to remember he's the last one to keep you warm

But the first to make you cold.
This I know.

What The Hell?

What is hell, exactly? Is it a place of postmortem torment? Is there fire, brimstone, or sheets of ice, perhaps? I can’t claim this untrue, but let’s put these two awful ideas together and say that there are titanic amounts of flame and ice in the same misanthropic room. It only takes one scientist to whip out the laws of thermodynamics before the massive transfers of heat energy melt the glaciers and extinguish the painful lighting. Fire and ice are boring on their own, but even two of the most miserable forces together can’t bond to create something workable and interesting. Does this mean I don’t know a bunch of jerks who deserve the worst of what they’ve done thrown back in their face tenfold? Of course not. This just means the old ideas of nature’s extremities being the epitome of torture are stale and unoriginal. This is pain and affliction, version two millennia.

If I had things my way, hell would be a new kind of storybook where [revenge is the fire.] Some may call me vindictive, but I see no harm in goodhearted retaliation. “But Sarah, what about being the better person?” Yeah? What about it? You get what you give, and fraudulence towards me has never suggested any desire for my kindness. Why suffer scars without a fair fight? I’ll take care of what I can, and when I run out of ideas and motivation, hell will take over. And it will be known: not all storybooks have happy endings.

In my hell, there would be no specifics. Nearly every single person on Earth would qualify for a spot in the [burning pits of revenge.] Even if I had enough ideas and planning to extract justified amounts of payback, I would never be able to find enough time to do so. Most people fall into this same predicament regarding everyone that has ever wronged them. Lies, false accusations, unjustified destruction of reputations, wrongful manipulation, selective forgetfulness, unnecessary rudeness, betrayal, and the breaking of trust just begin the list of admissions to hell.

To make this hell permanent would make no sense. The point of any suffering done within is to complete the idea of getting what you give. Earthly actions will all have been separate one-time occurrences, so making punishment eternal would be unfair, considering whoever was the recipient of the transgressor’s violation has his own list of imperfect moments. To not have paid for a wrongdoing is to not understand what it felt like on the receiving end. Once this knowledge is gained on a personal level, the finite nature of this intangible hell will cast out the rectified soul. Into what? Until there’s something testable, we’ll have to go with the law of Man: ignorance is bliss.

We The HCTN Loyalists

The abstract friend. The outside acquaintance. The person you always see, but you never talk to. This is who I am, who I've always been, and is the reason I can sit here today and give a kind of third-person analysis of something that has a lot of people down right now. I won't claim to be a part of “a group” or “the group” or whatever you want to call anything regarding anything, but I know you guys, and I know who I support, and why I support them. And so it commences.

Here Comes The Neighborhood: we love them. We support them. We obviously care about them. By “we,” I mean the kids that try and get out to most of their shows and know more about the band and its counterparts other than “Oh Dustin yor so foiiiiine” or “OMG Will I love yor hairs.” The people who can say “Hey Dustin, I still have to send you those Brand New tracks from that one EP” or “Hey Will, I want to see you play drums sometime.” In other words, the kids that are here to be more than just hopeful prospects for the members.

The show's over at the Matchbox. Hicktown and friends go to KenTaco Hut. American Legion Underground is so tiny, let's all go to White Castle and spend half our money on fake tattoos. Both of the vans broke down, but let's chill in Will's basement and walk to Turner Pond anyway. These are just a few memories the majority of us share. There isn't ever really anything epic going on here. We're usually just a bunch of hungry and/or bored people that are already hanging out with a bunch of other hungry and/or bored people that happen to be friends.

But we have good times. Really good times, sometimes.

And then one day, Dustin So Foiiiiine and Will Lovely Hairs resign from Town Council along with Joe Has A JewFro, Victor Appreciates Jesse Lacey, Mikey Wears DARE T-shirts, and Stephen Moonjumps Like A Goon. Our leadership is gone. Hicktown is no more, and its people don't know what to do.

Change: to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone. Regarding the lake that the FriendFans HCTN have been sailing on, the recent discussions and rough decisions have defied all science and created an iceberg somewhere in the middle of the water for this Here Comes The Titanic to crash into. In the movie, if it weren't for that stupid iceberg, people wouldn't have died. But plans change, and conditions aren't always favorable. You also gotta remember, in the movie, half the people were able to be saved. Sure, there's a little part in all of us that's gonna be dead. I'm gonna miss hearing Cowboys and Young Thugs live. But we gotta set sail on our little temporary lifeboats till we find and witness the potentially great new things that come out of this. Maybe we'll like the upcoming project just as much for what it is. Maybe we'll all still hangout at shows sometime soon enough. Maybe this isn't the end, guys.

Above all, I don't think the diffusion of the band is the real issue here. Yes, of course they have talent and it's sad to see some of those great songs be retired. I understand this, and I'm probably gonna get sentimental about it every time my iPod tells me I need to listen to HCTN on shuffle. But I really, truly, honestly believe this is about the people. The friends. Everyone who consistently gets together to chill with these people we seem to know so well. The fear of all of this being lost. The fear of the bond holding this together breaking. The fear of no one organizing any time together, of no one wanting to admit they want to hangout as a group again without some bigger reason to do so other than “I miss you guys.”

This could very well happen. At the same time, we only lose what we think we deserve to lose. We fight for what we think we deserve. If something falls apart that we all want, if we ever feel the need to blame Dustin So Foiiiiine, Will Lovely Hairs, Joe Has A JewFro, Victor Appreciates Jesse Lacey, Mikey Wears DARE T-shirts, and Stephen Moonjumps Like A Goon for anything that we've let ourselves lose on our own, then yes, there is probably something to be feared. That “something” is the realization that it was all an illusion, that there was never really any glue holding us together in the first place. That will only be as true as we let it be. It will be the fault of whoever lets it be their fault. After all, "Love is alive inside of us."

In conclusion: things will be okay if we want them to be okay. Also, change isn't always for the worse. Just stick it out. See what happens. Motion City Soundtrack says it well: “With all my dreams hooked to hospital machines, I think 'Let's try redefining beautiful...'”