Alone

The truth is,
we're all alone.
We reproduce to ensure we're not,
but they leave.
We marry so someone is there,
but they aren't.
We pretend that those we choose
to have in our lives
are substantially defeating our loneliness,
but as we talk to them
they can't understand.
Because they
are not us.

So we're all alone,
and we fill that loneliness
with everything we possibly can.
From buying shit we don't need
to friends who create more pain than they are worth
to vices that take us away from
the very loneliness we should face.
Head on.
Because while we are
lying on our death beds
what is going on in our own heads
is exclusive to us.
As it is every other minute
of every other day.

Sure, there may be people who try
to connect on some level.
And maybe they succeed
to a degree,
and maybe that is enough for some of you,
but it doesn't take away from the fact
that you're still alone.

I'd love to take every hand
of every person I have discovered
to be special
and walk through the dark with them,
to help alleviate that loneliness,
but the best I could ever achieve
is for them to just feel less alone.
Which is to say they are still
very much so
alone.

Loneliness does not come
from external sources.
It comes from realizing
no one is you,
and thus
no one can understand
You.

So let us find
temporary releases from that loneliness
and hope that they last
longer than most,
but never forget
that they are just that.
Maybe then, maybe just,
we can learn to appreciate one another
a little bit more,
and that dark walk
can be just a little bit less
Alone.

-Dustin S. Stover

The Blackened Page

The page blackens at a deadening fast pace.  The words flow from his finger tips in a fever dream state, and that is where the art comes in.  Taken out of context, the words lose all shape and meaning, yet when placed in the sequence of the blackening page, meaning takes shape.  A poetic sense of justice for a man who is just desperate to find someone to understand.

A consequence, then, of the hallucinatory agent he took mere hours ago.  His mental state at the cusp of going in any singular emotional direction - albeit, even if very temporarily, it feels the most pure to him as he experiences it.  The senses have heightened and he believes what he sees.  He writes as he feels.  The elegant poetry, while lost in the initial intent, forms a bond with what is between the lines.

He sees no monsters you typically hear the stories about with such substances.  The room just feels more vibrant.  His head takes the shape of his greatest desires and grandiose ideas.  Still, in the purity of his emotions, words flow.

This man knows a thing or two about where art comes from.  He indulges in every emotional state he can.  He justifies experiences with knowing that they will shape his tomorrow in ways he could not otherwise fathom, and won't fathom until he can process.

This is where his appreciation comes from, while also fully understanding just how slippery the slope of imposing emotions can be.  So he finds himself in solitude with his hallucinations, still bringing him pure, unadultered emotional madness.

A memory inside him sparks.  A long lost love - his childhood dog, the kind of love that is absolute and pure, without the messy complications of human complexity.  It is far from a pleasant memory, however.  He remembers wanting to protect the dog and being unable to as tears begin to flood the ground beneath his chair.

Still, the page blackens even more.

He processes the emotion even more, the only way he can in this state - nearly incapable of doing anything other than writing about it in some convoluted, twisted story.  He will spend tomorrow editing it to make sense, but right now it is more important to get the words upon the page.

The room is filling with his tears and he begins to feel claustrophobic, but still the words are pouring out of him.  They've taken control now, as his hands turn into blurs before his very eyes.  Still, the image of that dog - him standing in front of it while his mother holds a belt and is ready to whip the dog into shape - has been etching itself, detail by detail, as a pure emotional image inside his mind.  

The tears clear the top of the chair.  His face, feeling as though it is melting.  He is too far gone, but tomorrow he will question whether he over indulged.  His hands have never moved as fast as he sees them moving now.  The dog, whimpering behind his legs as it knows what it did wrong.  The man, only as a child, doesn't care what the dog did wrong.  He knows the dog doesn't deserve this.  He knows that he must stop his mother from doing the damage to the poor, innocent dog, but he is too small and easily gets pushed aside.

The tears are to his mouth now while his face begins dissolving into the salty liquid.  His hands, obscured and slowed by the water, now look like they are darting in all sorts of odd directions as the pool of tears splash around the room.  He must finish blackening the page.

The tears rush over his head as he takes his final breathe.  His head topples onto the desk between his arms, which are still extended to the keyboard.  The room is dry.  The memory has subsided.  For now, he dreams of things he could only hope to remember.

He awakes in the morning, feeling refreshed and new.  He looks at the blackened page.  It wasn't black.  In fact, there was only one line - "I love dogs."

- Dustin S. Stover

The Dangers of Religion: Volume 2

I will preface this entry with stating that I do not believe that religion inherently makes you a bad person. 

Now, having gotten that out of the way.

Ego.  Religion teaches the religious to be humble to a degree, but only to a falsehood.  The contradiction comes about once you delve into the belief that the religious is going to a heaven while the non-religious are going to hell.  This will inherently lead one to believe that, due to the sacrifices they've made in their lives for the religion they so choose to be a part of, they are better than those who have not made the same sacrifices.

Of course, this also must fall back on the faith in the religious themselves that they are correct in their religious perspective.  If the faith gets shaken at all, or they fall into a different religion - even a different sect of the same religion - then one must alter their lifestyle to accommodate that new system of beliefs.  So the faith that they are correct in their personal religious choice then also adds to the concept of their superiority.

The two fundamental ways in which Western religions choose to persuade their believers are through either happiness - typically by creating a sense of community between those who have joined, usually through song and events that cater to making people feel more connected - and through fear - the crowd in which strict lifestyles must be maintained or the threat of eternal damnation will be the most assured result. 

In the case of happiness, it leads one to feel superior in that they have a connection with those who they share their religion with whereas those outside of that bubble may appear to have less of that happiness.  Even though these people tend to have a significant less emphasis on eternal damnation, their community spirit leads them to believe that they have something others don't have.  This will obviously lead to a feeling of being better than others.

In terms of the fear strategy, these are the primary groups that sacrifice the pleasures of life more readily as a means to not offend their God.  Of course, when you sacrifice things like alcohol, drugs, premarital sex, cursing, and even to such great extents of healthcare for prayer then it is very easy to look at people who do these things as significantly worse off.  Add in that those people, at least in their minds, are going to Hell to burn for all eternity then it is clear to see how they would believe the religious perspective is has the higher ground, and thus must be more valuable as humans,

Going back to the faith aspect, however, it is also easy to see how the shaking of one's faith in their own perspective of their chosen religion would also be so offensive to their ego, which is fundamentally attached to the religion they are a part of.  It creates a very frail balance of believing to fill a meaning in one's life and keeping that belief structure just to support the individuals own ego.    Of course, the harder these people's lives get then the harder they can potentially grasp onto their religion.  A desperate clutching to ensure that their ego doesn't get damaged - a means to ensure their life's value doesn't slip away in the process.

-Dustin S. Stover