Paranoia

I know little of this expanse.

It's dark, unkown, thenreatening.

I am flailing my arms, groping for

Something substantial; tangible.

How I ended up here -

That is entirely mine.

It is a dark, brief journey for me.

It is a fall from sanity into God knows what.

At last I find myself in some

Clarity; light sates my eyes and,

Of course, who but my own self

Must be standing in front of me?

When now I realize how

Awful that had been;

That flailing, that abyss

I know now how I got there, and how I returned.

A crack appeared.

I, gathering myself, leapt into it.

Perforce I opened this crack wide,

And deposited there my frustration.

Yet I believe a rappel was

Cast down to me

As I groped frantically for existence.

I did not at first know,

And I moved not

From the unfailing darkness

That the line might lead deep.

I was pulled up.

As I reflect upon my

Episode of fear,

I wonder how much larger

That gap has become.

I wonder, dear

Whether you trust me alone

To bridge the chasm.

For that bridge would be but rope.

Dramatic

I am called...Dramatic.
Not what my mother called me.
I, I call myself the Storm and Stress,
Because I let my emotions fly,
And they know I do crazy best,
And most wish Storm and stress to die...
I am not wicked, nor evil, nor insane,
Just a little over the top, cresting that hill...
I am crazy, for drama is my game,
And frankly, of normalcy, I've had my fill.
I am called the Sturm und Drang,
And I live for the love of none
'Cause since last I loved, it's been so long,
Since then, I've had so...much...fun.
I am not wicked, nor evil, nor insane.
I live for the duel, the attack, the dreamer's dream,
Holding on to the things that always change,
Never forgetting that I am not as I seem.
I am called an abysmal mess,
For I am always everywhere,
And that I am a fool I confess,
But that doesn't mean I don't care.
I am not wicked, nor evil, nor insane.
I am, therefore I think, and have something to give.
And since tainted blood courses though my veins,
I am called dramatic, yet still I live.
I live for but a blink in time, not too long.
For that blink, my Storm shall deal its scintillating blow.
I will end your chauvinistic chortle, I will show you I'm strong.
And sweet sobriety, oh you, I will have you know:
I am not wicked, nor evil, nor insane,
Only eccentric, too happy at times.
And when I die, still I will remain
With you, corpse rotting away, left only with my rhymes.
I am called the Storm and Stress,
I am called the Sturm und Drang.
I am called the abysmal mess.
I live, but live for not too long.
I am called dramatic, you see;
Name stuck to the man it's on.
But that's not what mother called me.
She called me Nabeed Hassan.

Catching Fireflies

Dusk to Dawn
Is characterized by
Closed minds
And closed eyes, by
Shades and darkness
And Evils and sins;
It's hard to think straight
When the night begins.

I know night is just a shade of day
If you just look at it a different way
Remember when you were a child,
And you thought stars looked like fireflies?

Well they were in the past,
And still are now,
So go and catch one
Before you've found
That the sun's come up,
And in your bed you lie,
And all the stars have gone
Bye, bye, bye, baby,
Bye, bye, bye...

Dusk to Dawn
Is characterized by
Closed minds
And closed eyes, by
Shades and darkness
And Evils and sins;
It's hard to think straight
When the night begins.

The sun's come up,
The night's left the world again,
The fireflies are gone,
And you missed your chance
To catch fireflies
In your daylight romance,
So start missing the night,
'Cause it's missing you,
And after every sunset it weeps for you,
And as its tears fall down
As it writhes in pain,
We dismiss the water
And call it "Rain..."

Dusk to Dawn
Is characterized by
Closed minds
And closed eyes, by
Shades and darkness
And Evils and sins;
Will you be catching fireflies
When this night begins?

Experimental Monologue

Hah, that's funny. Did you just tell me, "You have no common sense"? Hah. HAH. You, you have SO much to learn, it's not even funny. I'm more sensible than you will ever be, my friend. I know this, because you have mentioned that little phrase, that little idea that has no value, the combination of breath and teeth and lip and tongue movements that mean nothing, absolutely nothing, "Common SENSE." Do you even know what that is? Can you define it? No, no you can't. Common sense is the thing people say you don't have when you don't fit their description of normal - like, for instance, me being a klutz. No one is as spazzy and uncoordinated as me, as far as I know. Therefore, I have no common sense. Right? Wrong. There's no such thing as common sense. Just like there's no such thing as normal. Everyone is messed up in their own way, there's no standard to be set for behavioral patterns, because inside, no matter how much you deny it, you're always the antithesis to normal in everyone else's mind. Normal is a word to cause a false sense of security of what others think of you. Well, guess what? Maybe the highest state of behavior is not to care what normal is, not have a sense of normal, not care what others think of you. If you answer to a higher power[s], only think of what he/she/it/they think of you, because that's all that matters. If you're an atheist, hell, you can go scot-free, unless you do something absolutely terrible and mean and an asshole. I never said you can't be described as a kind of person, I just said you can't be normal. No one has common sense, because when you think you have an iota of it, your mind knows its already insecure about its own behavioral patters. I'm not insecure about my behavioral patterns. I'm atypical. I'm abnormal. In fact, I'm anomalous. I'm proud of it; I enjoy being awesome in my honest state of self and how I carry myself. I'll attempt to look pleasing, sure, because I don't like being unpleasant. I think common sense, really, is the understanding that life is about making a good impact on humanity somehow, however small or insignificant. It is something that everyone has. But some people refuse to listen to it.

Existential

Let me narrate to you all a story
Packed with the absence of fame and glory,
Conceived from a rampant mind
whose purpose and direction remains hard to find;

Will wander from its original point
And minds with murky muck anoint,
Leaving dear reader utterly confused
With the endless befuddling terminology used...

This is a story of a boy, a mirror, and a pen -
A boy who'd observed pain and come back again
Like hallowed heroes of old
Minus adventures brave and bold.

It starts with little hero here -
A loser with a lazy demeanor, I fear -
He'd has a good run at summer camp that year,
He'd discovered a skill and faced a fear

Came back to school;
In September, month so cool
With the frosty autumn chill
With leaves to blow and plants to kill -

Just an ordinary guy
Under a nerdy guise
That had many layers that, when peeled,
A whole new facade would perchance to be revealed...

A stronger person with the power of will
With mind driven and body kept still.
He lived his life without concern for future times;
Created poetry upon thinking, "Hey, that rhymes!"

Again he witnessed, experienced such a joy;
A painful happiness overcame this boy,
Again confused, unable to understand
His meaning of love and what makes a man a man,

What his place in society was,
Why his mind works the way it does...
A hero's story minus the actual pain -
No injuries or adrenaline pumping through veins...

Only trained his weapon on a sheet of paper, and then
His life poured out from the tip of his ballpoint pen,
'Till fingers sore and eyelids heavy
And agitated as an American under a new tax levy...

But happy with his words he became,
Even if they gave him not money and fame,
But more fuel for thought and things to pose about,
More reasons to peer into reflective glass and shout

At that loser staring back at him,
Looking through the looking glass, but not within,
"You're fat, you're ugly, wipe off that grin,
No brain in your head, and fuzz on your chin,

Shut up and sit down - rather, do some crunches!
Your life can't be lived off of feelings and hunches!
Get out of my house, out of my face,
I can't stand the sight of you, get out of this place!"

Our hero didn't sleep that night -
Despite the silence and absence of light...

The next day, our boy was fine,
Free-wheeling, the concern of emotion off his mind,
And the next day, too, and the next after that,
Slowly, he came to find, in fact...

Slowly, by the next summer, our hero
discovered himself, knew his foe
Better, anyway, than he'd like to know...

Our hero fought against himself
To calculating intelligence from pathetic whelp

But still now our hero fails to understand
The meaning of love and what makes a man a man;
Fought himself for all time, and now here he stands,

Speaking of himself in the third person in his personal novel
Expecting an audience at the end to applaud and maybe even grovel...
Realizing that his best assets to his sanity are his best friends
As our hero's existential quest comes to an end.