WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY

WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY
by matt burns

I sit up late
Drinking beer
And listening to RUSH
And I think about what really makes me happy
Because that’s what the spiritual therapist said to do
I’m supposed to arrive at this conclusion
But I’m having trouble

At first I think about strip clubs
I am genuinely always happy there
But I know the happiness is short-lived
The next day, I’m empty

And then I think about writing
I’ve been doing a ton of that
Tons and tons and tons
But no matter how much I do
I never really achieve any state of lasting happiness
Or even a sense of accomplishment, come to think of it

Maybe if I finally get rewarded for my writing
With recognition
And money
But I’ve never received a penny for my writing before
So I don’t know if that would make me happy
And whether the happiness would last much longer than at the strip club
So it’s all hypothetical
And exists in a potential future that may never manifest
I may NEVER get paid for my writing
So happiness needs to come from some place else

But I don’t know where
I really don’t

What I do know
Is that sitting here
Up late
Trying to think about what makes me happy
Racking my brain
Does not make me happy
In fact, I’m much more unhappy
Sitting here
Drinking
Stressing my brain
Thinking that I’m supposed to figure this out
And keep coming up dry

So I don’t know what makes me happy
And I think that’s fine for now
I do not know
What beautiful words
I…do…not…know

Eureka!
The devil hath taken on a new guise
That of a positive psychologist
A spiritual guru therapist
Telling me to go and meditate
And figure out what makes me happy
Knowing full well
That I will stress
And rack my brain
And be convinced my unhappiness is all my fault
And I'll hate myself for not identifying what makes me happy
And that clever devil will laugh knowing he made me worse off in the end

Tip of the hat to you, O DEVIL!
You hath tricked me again!
Nothing but reverence I give to you!
Once again
I am in awe of your tricky
Clever
Ways!

Yes, the irony
Sitting here stressing over what makes me happy
Thinking the answer must be so simple
But not getting anywhere with the answer
Has made me all the more unhappy
Brilliant, devil!

So what really makes me happy?
Not sitting here
Busting my brain
Thinking I should know what makes me happy

What makes me happy
Is knowing that I do not know
And it's ok not to know
That's what makes me happy

Be gone, devil!

MY DOG COMES IN MY ROOM

My dog exudes relaxation

MY DOG COMES IN MY ROOM
by matt burns

I’m sleeping
Well, not really
I woke up after about four hours
I try to go back to sleep
This has been happening a lot
I’ll wake up after an initial few hours
And can’t go back to bed
The alcohol that knocked me out initially
Has worn off
While stress and reality have surged back into the bloodstream

But then I hear the pitter-pattering of claws against the wooden floor
It’s my dog coming into the room
She mounts her bed
She scratches around a bit
I hear her circling
Calculating the most comfortable position
Then I hear her plop into a curled ball
With a dull groan
And then the relaxed exhale
Oh, that exhale!
So relaxing
So peaceful

Just her presence in my room
Her energy
Relaxes me totally
And I’m able to fall asleep again

CIRCLING THE RINK

CIRCLING THE RINK
by matt burns

Drifting around the rink
In circles
Not even lifting up my skates
Just gliding
And pumping
And drifting

Around
And around
And around
I go

I enter a meditative state
And I realize...

This is my life again
Drifting alone
In circles
In circles
And in circles

I look up ahead of me
I see a young couple
Probably high school age
Maybe early college
They're on a skating date
They're so cute
They're wobbling around
Awkward with the skates
They look so happy

In an alternative reality
That could have been us
But now she's married
It's only been a few months since we broke ties
But she's already married to another guy
She's entered a new chapter
While I'm circling around
Back to the old
Haunted by the past

I hear 'Uncle Matt!'
My nephew's skating behind me
He wants to race
So I race him
And he takes me out of my head
This is what I need!
I need to be out of my head!
But my nephew eventually gets tired
He takes a break
And I resume my circles
Around
And around
Around

What happened? 
I'll never wrap my head around it
All I know is that I'm back to being alone
Going around
And around 
In circles
Desperately looking for the new
But coming back around again
To the very 
Exact 
Same 
Old

THE SERGEANT BARKING IN MY FACE

THE SERGEANT BARKING IN MY FACE
by matt burns

Isis
Ebola
Bill Cosby
Ferguson
CIA torture report
What's after that?
Back to Isis again?
Isis is pissed and retaliates?

Every day something new
Can’t keep track of it all
Hard to follow
Hard to educate myself
As soon as I get a grip on one current event
Another one happens
And when I barely get a grip on that
There’s another one
And another
Like working the conveyor belt in an assembly line
If you’re not quick enough
You’ll fall behind
And everything will just
Whizz
On
By

The “news” today is a Drill Sergeant
Shouting in my face
One trending topic after another
Assaulting my senses
I feel disorientation
My head’s spinning
So much that
I'm paralyzed with overstimulation
And sensory overload 
To the point where I’m confused
Stunned
Numb
And more easily malleable
Easier to control

Like with a Marine in bootcamp
The point is to break me down
So that I easily take my orders

Because I've lost my grip on what the hell's going on in reality
I look for the government via the media to dictate it to me

I don't understand anything that's going on

I'm confused

Just tell me what I need to do

THOUGHTS ON BEING A GOOD SAMARITAN

This whole year of 2014 I've essentially been a pathetic pushover and it's time I draw the line. Like the poem says, sometimes you just have to push these people away and let them reap the consequences of their own poor decisions. You can't be Mr. Nice-Guy all the time.




THOUGHTS ON BEING A GOOD SAMARITAN
by matt burns

It's December
'Tis the season of giving
But you must learn
The fine
Tight-rope
Walk
Of being a Good Samaritan

God's idea of a Good Samaritan
Is not a person
Who cleans
Up
After another person's
Constant
Dumb
Mistakes

Sometimes people in constant distress
Need to
Rot
In the gutter
So they can learn
And make
Better choices in life

PSYCHOKINESIS

PSYCHOKINESIS
by matt burns

Boiling fears
And loathings
Fester in our subconscious
And fester
And fester

Some people say
These repressed energies manifest themselves
Physically
In the outer
Three-dimensional world
And cause actual physical events

So when you watch the Reality TV with all the 
Jersey bro-dudes
And the Hollywood Hillbillies
And the Honey Boobies
Honey Boobies’ mom was dating a sex offender?!
Cancel the show!
And you read the blogs about the “celebutards”
And see Kim Kardashian’s big, greasy ass on a magazine cover
Then come all the scandals
Bill Cosby
America’s favorite dad
A rapist?!
Disillusioned we are
And enraged we all get!

Then we watch the news
And there’s
Isis
Ebola
Then comes Fergusonola
White cops shooting blacks
Black criminals looting 
Burning down stores
Beating down whites!
Then comes Staten Island
Another black strangled by a cop
No indictment
Civil war imminent?!
The media makes us take a side
Are you with the cops?
Or with the blacks?
Fear the cops!
Fear the blacks!
They pit us against each other
Go and protest!
Polarized we become
And divided we rot
We can’t unite and get anything done
Frustration
Rage!

And collectively…

The negative energy
In each and every one of us
Psychokinetically
Manifests itself
As more negative energy in the world
And more bad events happen
Bad weather – superstorms, quakes, tornados, floods!
Bad disease
More bad Kardashian photos
(Kourtney just posed preggo and naked)
Disgusting
So gross!

And the media reports on these events
And we get even more loathing 
And more fear
And the negative collective consciousness
Psychokinetically
Manifests more negative events in the world

It’s a perpetual cycle of negativity
A snowball effect
A guarantee
That there will be constant fear
And loathing
Absolute hell
For all eternity

There is a great, epic war out there
Not good vs. evil
But positivity vs. negativity
Negative energy wants to win
But will we let it?

I WANT TO LIE IN THE GRASS

I WANT TO LIE IN THE GRASS

by matt burns

Sometimes after I mow the great big lawn

I’m all sweaty

And tired

And I want to grab a beer

And plop

And just lie on the freshly-cut lawn

Relishing in the end product of my hard labor

Soaking in the earth’s energy

Plug myself back into the universe

And feel my energy replenished

But I know

That if I do this

My skin will absorb the fertilizers

The pesticides

And the herbicides

This can’t be healthy

I want to enjoy the earth

And absorb its energy

But it’s often difficult to do this

Even if I go in the woods

And lie in there

I get ticks

And I get Lyme disease

Some people say Lyme disease

Was a man-made disease

Made on Plum Island

Either way…

There’s a war out there

An assault on the earth

They want us disconnected from the earth

And all its essential energies
They don't want us in touch with the earth
They want us out of touch