Blog Archives - JEREMY VOID

I am not like ordinary men. I think in a way that makes the mass populous shudder. My thoughts and dreams are banned from most libraries, my ideas and schemes forbidden from any textbook. I’m just a human being trying to navigate my way through a world crammed tight with let-downs and setbacks. I write because I need to, not because I want to, but there’s a magic beneath the pen as it scrawls word for word, as I scribble my internal drama between the lines. It’s almost like giving birth, painful to let it out, but boy does it feel good that it will fester inside you no longer, and now you can raise and nourish it. That’s a magical thing, isn’t it?

Introspection is a sure way to drive a crazy person insane.

It mightt not be for everyone, but hopefully it's for someone

A Word-Smith

FICTION
CREATIVE NONFICTION
POETRY
PROSE POETRY
ESSAYS
RANTS
SONG LYRICS
eXperimental Writing
Verbal Exploration

Perfectly

10/30/2022

If things hadn’t happened
perfectly
like they had
well, you know
I’d be somewhere else
someone else
Beyond black matter

I’d be the center of
a different world
thrust through the void
I’d have developed
new skills
gotten to know
different kinds of people

If things hadn’t happened
the way they had happened
perfectly
like they had
well, you know,
I’m glad that they had
worked out in the end

I cannot confirm
my life would be better
or worse
but in the grace of something
I’m sometimes grateful that
this is the place
where I ended up

If things continue to happen
perfectly
well, you know
I’ll always be saved
I’ll be okay
because that’s the only way
for things to happen to me

Big

10/30/2022

I wish I wasn’t such a big guy. I don’t see myself as a big guy. Mostly I feel small, and frail. Scared all the time. It’s kind of a paradox: this big, scary dude, afraid of the world and everyone and everything it encompasses. My dreams are small, my nightmares immense. My world is mini and my mind is being compressed by the thoughtless reruns I got going on all the time. It’s a waste thinking about all this nonsense. There’s no way to escape my human body, and I’m racking my human brain with daydreams and wishes. Maybe I’m a leprechaun in another world. A court jester. A pixie. A half-witted decomposition. Maybe the consensus is correct; there is every reason to fear me. I’m just a sad sophomoric poet who likes to rant a lot about his problems, and fears and stuff like that. I guess I can dream about what it would be like to be smaller—would I fear someone like me? Maybe I’d try to fight me, because it’d be a win-win, don’t you think. Because if small me wins then he would seem as though he were a hero. And you know, if big me wins, he would come across as an asshole. Well, at least I’m somewhat skinny, but not as skinny as I used to be, remember?

In the Now

10/30/2022

Epic
Inconclusive
Drastic
Lascivious
Elusive
Fictitious
Abrasive
Indecisive
Deliberate
Inane
Delusional
Credible
Extreme
Irreputable
Fragile
Elaborate
Risky
Deceitful
Nefarious
Empty
Tragic
Destined
Melodramatic
Feisty
Self-destructive
Vacant

Hot&Cold Concrete

10/30/2022

I watch the sky
break
clouds sifting like flowers
the sun explodes
the world grows brighter
the cultured human race
moving to
the sound of violins clashing
to the crass
hot&cold concrete of a dream

it is too late
to start the day
the night was eerie
sleeplessly I
sat there like a
gun not loaded
waiting to fire my
non ammo into space
time to run with
the zeroes I stare
off at another world

the sky darkens
I decide it’s not worth
the discussion
the thoughtless interruption
born to dream about
a fiery outcome
too sheer to be
a form of silence

I stare at the moon
maybe howl with the sound
of my thoughts
establishing self-loathing
in a head so phony
destroyed by taboo we
find solace in
all things hollow
sometimes those things
break from the inside
outward to a shadow of self-doubt

I’ve stolen the sunlight
bathed in the brightness
dismay is partly a faulty idea
like all things uncovered
I sauntered down to
the boneyard alone
brooding the beat of a sea
that comes careening
around wired telephone lines

burning thoughts
desires crisscrossing the web
I tiptoe fingernails on
lines of powdered ideas
the way of
a race of peace lovers
continues to astound me
in the sense that
my calmness comes from
a place so disturbed
it ain’t worth the
effort to overcome

Born to Dream

10/30/2022

Boredom
Loathing
& Self-Worth

a retrospective
sense of self
Bordering on

insanity
dialed the wisdom
of a mental break

Burning the desires
with cigarette cherries
Setting fire to the

pages of a
damaged algorithm
WhY iS LifE

so ugly and
perverse
The fate of a race

absurdities & nuances
Born to dream
but a nightmare is

killing the seams of
a mind fondling
what once was disgusting

but now sits
still as a duckling
and rots in the cold hot

river of wasted youth
Spent Destroyed
Sour patches of decadence

Black Walls

10/29/2022

I walk through
black walls
my mind a freight train
tearing through
empty parks and
vacant lots

I’m in an alleyway
The graffiti art
spells my name
in big black, venomous
script
I see myself
on the edge of the brick
buildings
surrounding me

I’m riding the train
It goes straight
to an omen
that spells turmoil
in rancor
and spit

I keep screwing up
Everything goes to shit
The walls collapse
around me
as I pogo my way
through existence

Living on the edge of
a world
that’s gone mad
I thwack my head
on the bars
and kick spiderwebs
into the abyss

Waking up confused
as blissful as it is
I find my way
in a nutshell
devoid of purpose

Ambitionless
I’m on another
freight train through
my head

The alleyways get
derailed
by my thoughts and
ponderings

The park is on fire
The convenient
store is vacant

I caught the bus
to another
abandonment

Chemicals

10/28/2022

Many eons ago I was in a dual-diagnoses work/treatment program. Looking back on it, it feels like a whole different life, like I was never even there and it was all just a dream. We lived on a farm and we worked in the woods, with the animals, in the garden, and in my favorite place: the auto shop. I was good at auto-mechanics, especially small engine repairs. When I left the program, I stayed in a halfway house and Mike, the shop leader, let me come on as a paid apprentice. I did that for a year. I lived in the halfway house and I discovered spice and no one knew because spice, although it feels so similar to pot, doesn’t show up in piss tests and I was beating the system. Every night after I came home from work, I smoked spice. After three to four months of living in the halfway house I got to live in my own apartment. I was court-ordered to stay here for a full year and although most residents had to stay in the house for at least six months, I was moved to an apartment because they knew when my time was up, I would run; it was my plan all along. They wanted me to have some experience living in my own place before I took off. So I started drinking again and smoking weed and they all knew about it but I didn’t care and neither did they, it seemed, because they knew the alternative; it was either here or 10 to 15 years behind bars and no one wanted that for me. After a while they were just like: We’ve Had Enough. Although I didn’t claim to be a drug addict/alcoholic, I was using like one; and they could not keep me here if this kept up. I received a letter from my parents that said when my probation was up, I could not return home. I was so fucked, and alone and lost and hopeless. So I started going to meetings. I got a sponsor. I told the world I was clean because I was: except for the Ritalin and suboxone I was using. Ritalin—because I was already prescribed to it and they had no way of knowing. Suboxone—because it doesn’t show up in piss tests unless they are advised to test for it specifically. This program did not test for it and I got high, so high, every night I got home from the meeting. I went to some meetings and nodded off throughout. I was so speedy I wrote like a maniac in my journal for the entire meeting. I chaired a meeting while doped up and manic. I watched the floor turn to water and move like the ocean. It was working; no one knew. Then Samantha responded to my email and she told me she was clean. She was clean and I was trying to get clean but nothing was enough of a reason for me to stay clean. Until her, of course. I came clean about my using. Told everyone. Agreed to do it for real this time. Because she was back and she was clean and we started going to meetings together. She lived in Boston and I lived in Rutland, VT, and on the rare occasions I’d see her we’d go to meetings together. Then I found out she smoked a ton of weed. I mean: A Ton. But she was clean and she didn’t consider weed a drug. But I did. Anything I can abuse is a drug to me. She was as sick as always and I was trying to better myself. Every time we fought I got high because she was my reason for getting clean and when that reason failed me it was: There Is Nothing to Lose. I had nothing to lose. I got so high every time we fought. Of course, she started drinking again and I found a much better reason to get clean which is: Stick Around and You’ll Find Out for Yourself. I started to do it for myself. I worked the Steps. And I worked them hard. Even if I was spun on my own medication, vivance. How else was I going to stay up all night and write? How else was I going to work the Steps? Last time I abused my Ritalin I was lucky I didn’t die—so lucky my heart didn’t give out!—but I was always honest every time I took extra Ritalin. Honest with my sponsor—he never fired rejected or abandoned me. Honest with my therapist—he was always so accepting and understanding. Honest with my doctor—she was always so forgiving. Until I took enough to kill me. She immediately took me off of Ritalin and put me on vivance, which is supposedly better and much harder to abuse, and said if I tried to abuse it she’d take me off of all stimulants—for good! But I needed a stimulant because my ADD was so bad. So I took a little extra here and there, just enough to stay awake longer, and I ran out early every week; but it was no issue because I was happy now and I was doing so well and perhaps everyone knew and just looked past it. I came clean about it after I moved to Burlington because the doctor said I would have random pill counts and I knew I had to come clean. He didn’t condone this behavior but I’m pretty smart and I made it seem like what I was doing wasn’t as bad as it was. It was bad! I wrote the doctor a long letter justifying it. He bought it. I continued to beat the system. I got married and a year into the marriage Michelle said she couldn’t do it anymore. It was either her or vivance. I chose her but it was hard because my support system was stripped away from me. I had to do this and over time I learned I did not need this stimulant anymore and over time I was back to normal, or closer to it. In the end we are all drug addicts. Someone once told me that if I went the same lengths I went to get and stay high and did something else instead, I’d be surprised at how far I would have gone. At the time I didn’t understand what he meant. Because when he said it—I was high as God.

Untitled Poem

10/22/2022

dark skies
slash at
the rhythms of
the day
braced by confusion
listlessly
i ride the bus
thru the rain
my life behind me
my pain in front
this is not
the place i hoped
to be

the windows paved over
w/a black spell
only hell
can bring me
the peace i need

a piece of my soul
is lost
searching for its
other half
but the bus bounces
i’m bound for
great disappointment
another failure
chips the glass
before i know it
i’ll be shattered
a sharp pane
left there bare

is hope even
worthwhile
when i’m bathing
in the blood of tomorrow

Terrific Lies

10/21/2022

Erasing my face
as you tell me I’m no good
I bury my head
in piles

of chemicals
just to get lifted up
and spiraled
1,000 miles of nothing

I whisper that
I love you and
I never want to leave
your side

as I lose my mind
and let my fist fly
into your heart
Terrorized by my lust

Is this what
I’ve survived for
Are these the things
I’ve left behind

I wonder
solemnly
is it worth all the pain
the turmoil

Without you I’d be
dead
maybe
6 feet beneath

the sky I’d fly away
to the wild island
where vultures dominate
This is the path I lead

It’s love or nothing
and I choose nothing
Poisoned against
your heart

I eat the brains of
dead things
falling I’m flying now
I’ll never go back home

I never want to
leave this state of mind
this state of being
I see through your

terrific lies
but
I don’t care
and I’m

walking backwards until
I uncover the secrets
of your soul
just so I can be whole again

Lost in Abrasions

10/16/2022

I stare across the sky
into the benevolent mirror
where emptiness swallows
my vast existence

I try to run faster
than I can humanly run
Think quicker
than a human can think

With all my attempts
to unlock the latch
that holds my soul in shackles
I watch the face in the shadows

This is the end of the world
Beaty eyes zooming across the sky
that looms over total nothingness
I hide in the dark

from the abrasive lights
My shades cover the confusion
I am invisible now
I can walk on water

until the storm comes down
and razors jab at my face
faster than I can run
quicker than I can think

My veins pulsate with absolute
uncertainty I brace myself for
the convergent of all linguistic
lifeforms that shine needles

into my eyes\\\
Fire and hail are all life
has in store for me as
I stay here waiting, hoping for the best