In Hopes

I write this to the kids who believe there's no hope in hell for them, for the kids who think their lives have no chance of becoming something positive. I come from your position, this is my story to tell you how i bounced back, how i recovered, how i have baggage but how i manage to live day by day in somewhat of a productive and positive world. I come form the typical broken home, the house of a single parent who was forced to spend more time at work then with her own children. I had an older brother who managed to make it out alive by never spending time at home, never coming to terms with the reality he was forced to be consumed in. I lived in houses who's power would be cut off because of unpaid bills, listening to stories from my mother about how every blackout was an adventure, and make-shift plans in efforts to try and keep ourselves warm. Some ask me where i consider home, but to me, the saying home is where the heart is is more true then any other saying. I've lived in a numerous amount of different houses, i don't blame my mother, she just tried to find houses with rent cheap enough so the next time i opened the fridge there might be a thing or two to eat because some might know the feeling of opening the fridge to a pitcher of tap water, and condiments to the food we didnt own. I've been homeless at one point in my life when my mom decided the friend of hers we were staying was filling my head with lies... which in retrospect may be true... regardless it ended in me telling my own mother to her face that she was a slut... thats something that sticks to you until you die, i live with that scar and ill never forget it. I remember being in grade 8, before one can really put thoughts together for himself, watching his mother fall out of bathroom doors with her pants around her ankles as drunk as could be.... and finding the only soulus in a kitchen knife while sitting in the bathtub thinking to myself... at least this way the mess might be easier to clean... ive been there, ive felt those feelings. Fuck the idea of being adolescent and having raging hormones...when your a child you dont feel those intense feelings, everything your doing is real without any extra pressure on top of it... it wasnt social problems, it wasn't things that happened at school... it was the hopelessness i seemed to find an answer to in believing life might be easier if i wasnt around. Although, maybe with the grace of god i put the knife down, got out of the tub and went upstairs to the old type-writer my mother had bought for me at a garage sale weeks before and started to write... ive been writing ever since, maybe this is my therapy... who knows. The only emotion i fight with today is what the meaning of love is... and if ill ever find it... which some may say is significantly more productive thought then then ones i had when i was child. My only advice is that you need to be able to rely on yourself when times get tough, i know family cant always be there, and friends never seem to understand, thats when time to reflect and time to disregard and move on seems crucial. I consider myself independent because i know when times get tough, i have myself... and that has always seemed to be enough for me... i have problems keeping friends around because of it... but then again... maybe thats because of poor decisions on my part. Now, im a university student who has yet to figure out any real direction in life, although i know what im doing now is productive and i live life day by day with very few regrets... and i know, maybe tomorrow ill realize where im supposed to be headed... and head there.

And You Can Start, To Make It Better...

I think the song I want to hold your hand is an understatement; I want to hold your heart. I want to hold your love, I want to hold your needs and wants, I want to hold you. I’m starting to realize that this could be less to do with you, and more to do with what I’m finding out about myself. Maybe this is the way I realize what I am trying to find in someone, through my trials and errors with you I realize that there might be someone out there who wants to be with me as bad as I, them. I had a friend who once said, you need someone who deserves you. Maybe she’s right-

Let it out, and Let it In

- maybe I do deserve someone who deserves me. I don’t mean to sound selfish in that statement… but maybe for once… I could look past all that… maybe I could find someone who thinks I’m special… who thinks I’m different… who wants to be with me through thick and thin…

Don’t make it bad, Take a sad song, and make it better.

Nonsensical Sense

Sometimes with moments like these, I tend to remember that shimmer, or speckle of what the thought of love might be. I tend to write these blurbs as a way of exercise my right to argue myself. I show myself that I’m not always right. Like the seasons, my perspective on things change, maybe even as frequent, or more appropriately as often as the wind changes direction. Ill never figure out exactly what happens, or what inside me changes to frequently when I touch on the subject of what love is, so perhaps ill leave that up to whoever reads this to explain it to me later. Perhaps give me some sort of insight as to how my psyche operates. Now, on to my explanation of what I believe love to be today. I believe love to by the moment where you notice that the person you have feelings for deserves more then you can offer, but it perhaps means something more when you promise yourself to do whatever it takes just to give her what you cant, currently. Its that moment when, in my case, her head is buried in your chest with your arms wrapped around her, knowing that together, there’s no place else you’d rather be spending your time. Knowing full well that your protected, safe and ultimately loved. Its that moment where the first thing you think about when you wake up is her, it’s that moment where the last thing you think about before you fall asleep is her. It’s the sappy type of connection where you feel like every love song ever played seemed like a song written specifically for the shortness of breath you’re experiencing, or that moment where you forget to think because all you can think about is those eyes that you can’t pull away from. Love to me, today, seems to be the expression best suited to explain how id walk to her house just to tell her to have a good sleep, and that ill talk to her tomorrow. Through the rain, through the mud and the puddles, in a simple hope to see that smile once more before we both close our eyes for the day, because we both know the phone could never properly do the job. Love to me today seems to want to be written as an expression of how bad I would love to be the one she will be crying to next, but not about. Some say that as we mature, we move away from over dramatics, and we become realists in a real world. What happened to the children who never grew up in the idea that we wanted to keep all those hopeless stories of romance as our guidelines to the way we want to fall in love someday. The kind of adults, grown up from children who never forgot the real meaning of falling in love. I write this not only to myself, but to all people who dont think that love is some hopeless expression of a soon to be forgotten emotion, best described as a piece of fiction. Its to the people who believe in love at first sight. Its to people who never forget what it means to have a spark, a connection, a click. Its to the people who write stories like mine who cant help but wonder what she’s doing now, and if she feels the way I do… about anything. Regardless of what happens next, ill never forget those eyes, and ill never forget the way I feel now.

A Possible Start...

Its not so much the idea of maintaining the purity of a soul, because whos to say what purity truly is, or what makes something pure. Its more of seeking that point in life, right before you fall asleep where you feel no shame in your actions, and your completely content on the person you are, or at least the person your trying to be. I believe purity and love to be two completely interchangeable characters that not only pertain to a persons everyday life, but also on the final judgment of their soul, to whatever belief system one may follow. Its that moment on the bus listening to the band that moves you in a way you feel can never happen again, and you realize that hey, life isn’t about making something what it is, but more about having life make you what you are. Like any other story, this one should be about love, or at least the idea of what love may truly be. Although I do note that I have, or at least can accurately say, never been in, or truly felt what love is. This ill argue is more of a story of what I make love out to be, or what I want love to be. Love isn’t the relationship you’ve been in for years but think to yourself that “hey, I’ve been in it for this long, the sex is good, and I still like the person so I think ill stick with it”, loves supposed to be the, “I wonder if I pick up blue flowers this time, she’ll think of the time when the ocean was so blue that night, and how ill always think of her when I drink strawberry margaritas like I always do when I see blue.” It’s the kind of stories like that which make no sense overall, but the kind that you wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. This wont be pages upon pages of the detailed description of what I believe love to be summed up as, ill leave that to sappy, emotional and love fueled movies. This is more of a story about trying to maintain the tainted purity of my soul, while trying to establish to a reasonable and acceptable limit that I can base my idea of love around.

- Nathan Snider

Introduction

Im not exactly sure what i've been writing here, although it seems to continously come from the heart. I guess im open to criticism although i would assume i have no choice. My understanding is im very, very cliche, although that is acceptable to me because once again, this isnt something i view as made up, its something i consider real, and detatched from all fiction. Your welcome to read, but keep in mind, it is essentially meant for me, and me only.
- Nathan Snider