So, I spent a lot of time playing Cult of the Lamb. I even wrote about it last week. Unforuntaely, I got about halfway through the game (by my estimation, anyway. It might be longer than I think it is or shorter than I hope it to be) and a series of bugs rendered my save file almost unusable. Tack on constant performance issues, rituals failing to execute after selecting them, stuff disappearing from the game when I save and reload or between game launches, and various combat-related bugs that are responsible for all but one of my deaths, and it becomes clear that this was ready for cross-platform release. Also making it super clear is that many of these problems still exist on the PC version of the game, but with nowhere near the level of severity or consistency. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that felt as low-priority when it comes to console adaptions.
Continue readingBroken
Broken Down
He roamed through the empty halls of his house, wondering when it all fell apart. There was little for him to do at this point, other than wait for it all to end. His life had ended when he’d come face to face with the truth. It took all he had to not dwell on it, revisiting his actions and decisions endlessly, wondering if he could have changed things if he had paid more attention.
He drifted down the stairs and looked at the ruins of his one immaculate yard. There were weeds there now, and a slowly rusting car that seemed to belong here more than he did.
He thought about ending it, but he didn’t know how. There was no reason to struggle, anymore. No reason to try. There was nothing left for him and, eventually, there would be nothing left of him. He was doomed to just slowly fade away until nothing was left of who he once was.
He moved to the kitchen and watched a mouse scuttle across the dirty floor, and could not bring himself to care. He watched it stop for a moment to rub its face with its paws and look about before it disappeared into the wall near his cabinets. Somewhere, a bird cawed. It sounded heavy and dark, like his mood.
He looked outside at the forest beyond his yard and remembered the power he had felt as he walked through that door the first time. And the fear he had felt as he walked through it the last time. His life had been over at that point, he just hadn’t known it yet. The bombshell had already been dropped and it had been seconds from going off.
Dying had been easy. Being a ghost, however, was not.
Fallen
Broken words and broken moments
Shower me with leftover letters
And more little “later’s” than I can stand.
Cluttered mind and shuttered heart
Weigh me down as I reach out
And take me far from what I had planned.
Shattered phrases and endless thoughts
Tie me up in ceaseless swirls
That ignore my every plea or demand.
Forever lost beneath the rubble
Of my organized and ordered mind,
Piles of rock and ruin all beige and bland
Of which not even a plinth remains,
Is the once-mighty empire of me.
And all I can say is that it was grand.
Broken Words (My Self-Titled Post)
I’ve had this blog for over a year now, and I’ve never shared the poem that inspired the title. I think I’ve talked about it in the past, and I definitely remember writing about posting it eventually, but I figured that would be a good way to start my year of daily posts. And a way to solidify Friday as “Poetry Day” for my blog. So, here it is, without further introduction or preamble:
“Broken Words”
What point are there in words,
Hear how sweetly they sing,
When they fail to tell a tale
And no understanding bring?
What point are there in words,
So full of heart and love,
When they can be cast away
and easily disposed of?
What point are there in words,
So full of awe and wonder,
When they fall upon empty heads
And lose their flash and thunder?
What power is there in words,
Only so much empty wind,
That tumble out so carelessly
Like peels from an apple skinned?
What power is there in words,
Nothing more than empty lies,
That I will use to quiet
The tears that fall from your eyes?
What power is there in words,
Such simple seeming sounds,
That form the bones of our speech:
Verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and nouns?
What use have I for words,
Such lovely, crafted things,
When no one quite hears them
Despite their melodic rings?
What use have I for words,
So beautiful and bright,
When they cannot illuminate
Or show anyone the light?
What use have I for words,
So difficult and simple,
That cannot change a heart
Or cause an iron will to dimple?
What words have I to use,
A lexicon at my fingers,
To tell you of the thought
That cannot stay but lingers?
What words have I to use.
So many different choices,
To make you hear inside my head
The many clamoring voices?
What words have I to use,
So many and yet so few,
To make you understand
What I’m saying to you?
What point have I to make,
Flimsy as a tin foil,
That cannot be made by action
And take far less care and toil?
What point have I to make,
Nothing sharper than a spade,
When all the words are dead
And all their parts are played?
What point have I to make,
Swift and small as a pin,
That can pierce the patchwork
Armor that you wear within?
What power have I to take,
To steal so quick and sly,
Your mind and heart away
And leave you with a sigh?
What power have I to take,
Remove with nary a sound,
The echoes of your dreams
That hold you to the ground?
What power have I to take,
To shatter beyond repair,
What you thought you knew
And all that you hold dear?
What words are left to say,
To mumble murmur and mutter,
That will leave my thin mouth
Without a drawn out stutter?
What words are left to say,
Hollow sounds of passing air,
That will show you what I see
And teach you how I care?
What words are left to say,
Gurgle grumble and weep,
To convince you of the truth
That I, within me, keep?
What words of point and power,
To take and make and play,
Can I use to convince you
Of the truth of what I say?
The words of power that make,
The words of point that take,
No matter what one may say,
If you use these words,
they break.
What Does That Even Mean?
25 days after my last post and a solemn promise (even if it was made mostly to myself) that I’d write twice a week, I’m back again. In my defense, I’ve been pretty busy changing jobs, missing my old coworkers more than I anticipated, and working myself to the brink of exhaustion at my new job because they pay overtime. I’m a former student with a ton of debt just hanging out. Overtime is the only thing that’s gonna make it go away before my 30’s.
To be honest, the only reason I’m writing this post at all is because of my growing desperation to do something in response to President Trump’s actions. There’s so much wrong with what he’s doing and how he behaves on a day-to-day basis that I often feel that addressing it is hopeless. His supporters are almost impossible to engage because I can’t help but feel that they’re deliberately misinterpreting what I’m saying or that they’re purposefully ignoring everything but the specific interpretation of events that they’ve arrived at.
The worst part of it all is that everyone on both sides of the current issues seems to be leaping to the extremes. I’ve been fairly closely observing the world around me for my entire life and I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so polarizing as President Trump’s campaign and first week of presidency. I’m a Liberal at heart, but I tend to behave fairly moderately. I’m willing to compromise and take smaller steps to achieve lofty goals. I try to avoid being angry with people and believe that everyone, regardless of their words and actions, deserves to be treated like a human. With every passing day of President Trump’s governance, I feel more and more alone in the middle.
The thing is, despite being in the middle, I’m definitely not on the fence. I have very strong beliefs about the way the world should work and I’m quick to point out where there can be some improvement, but I generally prefer to encourage people to be good to each other than prescribe ways of living. My whole outlook on life and value set can basically be summarizes as “don’t judge people, be kind to one another, and everyone’s rights extend right up to the point where they start to restrict or invade other people’s rights.” Simple enough, right? Hell, you can probably summarize it even better the same way most ancient religions can be summarized: “don’t be a dick.”
Unfortunately, the current president of the USA can’t seem to embrace that idea and seems hellbent on not only undoing all the accomplishments of the past 8 years, but also on establishing himself and his political cohorts as the constant major ruling force of the USA. He seems more interested in pushing the limits of his power than using it to the benefit of the people who put him in office. His pursuit of adulation and wealth borders on the insane, as does his pathological ability to find an insult or slight in everything people say about him. He seems to hate the same way he breathes: automatically and without cessation. He places absolutely no stock in his words, flinging them out without consideration and abandoning the ones he’s dropped in the past in favor of whatever he thinks will best suit his unknown and unfathomable agenda.
He’s pretty much the complete opposite of me, in every way I can find to make a measurable comparison.
To me, words are some of the most important things we have to offer to the world, though song or speech, book or movie, or even the more abstract expressions in the visual arts. Communication. Nothing is more important to me than how we communicate with each other and the ways we choose to do it. That’s the reason I’ve stuck with this admittedly rather dramatic name for my blog. I inwardly cringe ever so slightly every time I read it because it feels so “emo poetry” when I read it to myself. That’s not what the title means to me, though, even if I can’t help avoiding that meaning when I consider it (I mean, I’ve written some of that cringy emo poetry, so I know how it can appeal to a person).
The tagline under the title, “The words of power that make, the words of point that take: no matter what one may say, if you use these words they break.” is the last stanza of a poem I wrote from a collection I’ve never really shown to many people that I call “Speechless.” I struggle with finding the right words a lot. I’ve always liked to take the time I feel I need to be sure of what I’m saying and there are a lot of times I’ve stayed silent because I wasn’t able feel that level of surety. Sometimes I found them too late to be of any good to me and sometimes I never found them at all.
Poetry has always been an emotional outlet for me, a way to take something I’m experiencing and put it outside of myself in a way that I can start to deal with it. For all of the “Speechless” poems, they’re all about times that words failed me. From the simple one-stanza “Words” to the much longer “Broken Words” that goes on for about three pages, they’re all about times I felt myself inadequate to the task of properly expressing myself.
This blog, for those who don’t care to look back to the first post, was supposed to be an attempt by me to push back against my tendency toward silence and my feelings of being inadequate when it comes to self-expression, which is why it was given the same name as the poem that is probably not only the core poem in the “Speechless” collection but may also be the best poem I’ve ever written. “Broken Words” is all about the power that words have and the fact that they will never mean entirely the same thing twice.
Sure, every word has a dictionary definition, but each word we use is affected by the words around it, by who says and when they say it, by the reason they are perceived to have said it and the reason they actually said it, by the way the listener heard it and by the way it might have been overheard by someone else. Words, like people, don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re constantly evolving and their meanings are always open to some interpretation. They’re little crystalline pieces of ourselves that we send out into the world to never get back, even if no one else heard them. Whether they’re the good parts of ourselves or the bad parts is up to the speaker, but they’re always a part of us and they always shatter as soon as they tumble from our mouths or occupy pixels on a screen, never to be seen in entirely the same way again.
I can promise this blog won’t become a platform solely for speaking out against the bullshit I see in the world, but I can’t promise that it won’t more often be my soap box than my creative outlet. As I’ve always wanted to say and never had the chance to, you can’t make a change in the world without breaking a few thousand words.