Coffee and Pizza rolls

            The room sings as music and bright animation flashes from the computer screen. A steaming cup of coffee sits next to the keyboard. The taste of caramel swirls inside the hot brew. Sugar is a fine flavor by itself but the flavor of caramel means something different than the taste of sugar. We live in an age were any flavor can be turned into a compound and turned into a coffee creamer. The rich flavor of caramel is not only desirable but brings forth memories of candy shops, Autumn, Carmel apples and that one time I filled a grocery bag full of caramel cubes and spent months eating them steadily.

            The grocery bag of caramels was a special memory, the discounted price of caramel cubes felt like a victory. There was a large orange cat in my house who used to steal my caramels, neatly unwrap them and eat them. I could bribe the cat to do tricks if I only offered a half of the sweetly flavored cube.

            The outer world affects my mind in this way, as a cup of coffee can bring me back to my teenage years. I am amused by my own mind as I find that the deepest and purest memories are of nature and outdoors. When you travel to the deepest part of yourself, where the words fall away and there is only feeling and image, these parts of me are that of rainstorms with no lighting, sunny forest walks with my dad and numerous cats all trying to cuddle me at once. 

            There are equally dark parts that hold only negative emotions and terrifying images, awful things that your mind makes you forget so that you can continue living life unhindered by dread. These are images best left for another day.

            The world is inversed inside my mind as the nature of the outside is the deepest in me but the inside world of computers and shelter are more on my surface. I love video games and my internet connection, I like the aesthetic of big cities and would be stranded without my car but these are not the things that speak to my deepest self. I do have a cityscape in my deepest self but it is not the beauty of a bustling metropolis, it is the grime of a ghetto street that no one ever leaves and this is no somewhere I wish to visit.

            I muse on coffee and caramel, inner and outer self when I hear my toaster over ding. My pizza rolls have finished cooking. Some company took the idea of pizza, made these tiny pockets and put pizza flavored ingredients in them, froze them and shipped them to markets across the country. I bought a bag of these frozen pizza inventions and put them in my toaster oven. Now I have food ready to eat and it took little to no work. This is a sign of the times and often amazes. Besides getting food from a “drive thru” window, heating up frozen food is one of the quickest and easiest ways to eat. This is the era where we sacrifice health for time saving and it is amazing the things we humans come up with.

            While I could go on about my own introspection until next age of progress, I am going to leave with a thought and a question. “What does the inner part of your self look like?”

This isn’t a quiz question to be answered and turned in but something to ponder on.

So Sick

I’m so sick of hearing the same songs on the radio, repetitive thoughts. They are just repetitive words and tunes that play over and over on an endless loop. I wish I could just turn off the radio. The radio keeps playing, without an off button, without end. I sit and clutch my head. I sit and clutch my radio as it spews out thoughts. As it spews out music into the air constantly. Thoughts. Songs I don’t want to hear echo out of the radio constantly. Some make me remember things I’d be better off forgetting, some torment me with things I already know. Songs. Thoughts. Radio always playing. Why can’t I shut off my radio? One time I threw a bottle at it and the radio stopped for a minute, but just when I thought it was off, the radio came back on.

 

            My voice echoes out of my radio, taunting me as I go through life. For every helpful suggestion there are equal parts pain and annoyance. Sometimes the radio is a dull hum and I can barely hear it, sometimes its blaring so loud that I can’t hear the voices of my friends or family.

 

            I’m so sick of the radio, why can’t I turn off the radio?

The noise in my Head

            My mind is racing full of emotion. My mind is like a crowd of people all jammed into a room. Everyone has a thought to say and usually they all wait their turn. During times of stress they all panic and try to talk at once. All of my thoughts talking at once and suddenly it gets very loud in my head. I hear my thoughts yell and scream to be heard, each one yelling over the next. The best thought isn’t always heard but the loudest one is. Just like real people, the loudest person isn’t always the smartest, but being loud gets attention. So people follow the loudest thought and the loudest voice regardless of whether or not the ideas are good or sane.

            I sit quietly in my chair at the library, the world in my head is buzzing with noise but the world outside is quiet. I stare with a neutral expression and no one can tell that I am trying very hard not to shout at myself to quiet down.

            I leave the house with my thoughts buzzing around my head like a swarm of bees. I get into my car muttering to myself. I turn on the radio and a song blasts out from the speakers. Its that one song that plays fifty thousand times and everyone is sick of but it still gets played. I hate the song and I hate that people love it. The loud outside noise mixed with my loud thoughts and adds new thoughts to my head. “Shut up!” I yell finally as I slam my palm into the radio. The radio is silent and for a moment so are my thoughts.

            I begin to drive and little by little the thoughts begin to pop up, like meerkats coming out of their nests to see if the area is safe again from the loud shouting words. The thoughts return but driving has my focus. I have something to look at and pay attention to. Focus is like the big daddy of thoughts pushing its way through the crowd. The thing that I am focusing on is now the most important and deemed the strongest in the group. The other thoughts sit quietly in fear of focus. Large towering focus helps me keep track of what I am doing.

            I turn down the volume on the radio and then switch it on, I turn to a station I like and continue to drive. A song comes on the radio that I am not familiar with so I listen intently as I drive. The words speak to a part of me. The upbeat lyrics sing of nice blue skies and I try to cheer up, but the lyrics fall flat as they continue. The song is trying to be upbeat with a general message of “I understand times are tough but you need to keep on going” which is a fine message but the examples of pain or ‘tough times’ are pitiful. Anyone who stresses over such meaningless problems needs to stop complaining, they don’t know what real pain feels like. I have felt pain and others have felt pain, this radio singer has not felt pain. My focus wavers and my thoughts jump on focus like an angry mob. My mind grows cloudy once again as all of my thoughts shout at the top of their imaginary lungs. A sea of thoughts swallows focus as it struggles and then dies. I race down the highway as my mind races through my thoughts. I forgot why I was so angry but I am swept up in the anger.

            I hear a loud car horn and I realize I have been driving too fast and too recklessly. I swerve to avoid slamming into the back of a car but end up slamming the side of my car into a motorcycle. The man on the motorcycle gets tossed off his bike and thrown into traffic. My car spins out of control as I recoil on the steering wheel. Another car drives forward and slams into my now sideways car. My car flips over and I fall unconscious. The thoughts fade away, their voices lower and vanish. All is quiet all is dark.

            That next moment I open my eyes and I am in the library, sitting in my chair. The world outside is so quiet no one would ever know how loud it was inside my head.