A look back

I know I haven't been the best blogger ever since I started "The BulletProof Diaries" and there is no excuse for that. However, such is life and I had a mildly stressful week so, please, bare with me.

Ever notice how frustration an anger can be converted into equally powerful and productive energies? Everything from art to literature to exercise can be done under the influence of these energies. Ergo, while feeling a bit upset over a series of events beyond the scope of this post a light bulb went off in my brain. I remembered an old poetry project that I had begun some years ago. All I did was collect poems by friends and family as well as notable authors and anonymous internet bloggers and began to compile them into a notebook titled "Paradox of Paradise". Somewhere between the pages I added in work of my own along with thought provoking quotes and pictures of medieval torture instruments/techniques. I know it sounds a bit disturbing but the whole thing put together is quite nice...

Here is the introduction to the book along with an excerpt of a poem (complete with exact image) I contributed to the collection:

Dear Reader,

The following collection of poems is one I personally assembled with the assistance of the those closest to me. I kindly advise that this collection is not for the squeamish or highly sensitive. Poems of all sorts: love, anger, sorrow, remorse, etc.- lie within the pages of this book in an effort to capture the beauty of words and are accompanied by diepictions that may be considered offensive. However, I do advise that when reading the lovely sentiments and raw emotion of these works, that you keep in mind that all the depictions were chosen for their symbolic and metaphoric meaning. I ask you to take these meanings and store them in the back of your mind while reading to provide the best possible experience. For my mission in combining words with images here is to provide perspective into the darkest areas of the soul where one may often feel lost and abandoned. Everyone has had the experience in which they have felt utterly alone whether it being within positive or negative aspects and the words written to form these poems, in many cases, are outlets of these emotions as they are written from ordinary people just like you and I. Occasionally, you will encounter the work of the more famous poet but they were people nonetheless. I hope you enjoy the collection for I have invested a great deal of time in copying and assembling these pages and I ask that you respect the views of those poets who contributed their works to the collection.

"Variations on a "This is Just to Say" by Williams Carlos Williams"

I amputated your limbs
when you were
asleep, last night
around midnight

You were probably
intending to
jog at sunrise,

Forgive me, but
the knife was so
sharp and you
looked so peaceful

To think that this was all created when I was just 15-17 years old, strange isn't it? Am I an emotional person? You decide...