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2.8k · Aug 2018
Names
Chris Reed Aug 2018
Everybody knows today's figures.
Lincoln Park. Kanye West. Beyonce.
Musicians. Artists. They are all praised in today’s society.
But nobody knows the names of people who actually matter.

Willis Carrier. Invented the air conditioner.
Nobody knows his name.

Robert E. Kahn. Made the internet.
Nobody knows his name.

The problem with today’s society
Is that the minds of young people are being poisoned.
By the schools who leave things out of textbooks.
By the people on the street, screaming their views.
The riots, the protests, the hell of today.
Poisoning the minds of young people.

Reed Hastings. Marc Randolph. Nobody knows them
Yet millions of people use Netflix.

SalvinoD'Armate. Nobody knows his name.
Yet over 4 BILLION people wear eyeglasses.

Young people today hate history.
They think, “Why do we need to learn about dead people?”
George Santayana once said:
“Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.”
We learn these things, not to be bored in history class.
Not to just **** time in the day.
But to inspire. To help young people to become creative, more innovative.

Imagine a world, where Alexander Bell never made the telephone.
Imagine a world, where the internet, just wasn’t a thing.
Imagine a world, where nobody invented new things.

William Higginbotham. I Guarantee that nobody in this room knows his name.
He created the very first video game, Tennis for Two, in 1958.
Without him, we would not have the games we have today.
Assassin’s Creed. Grand Theft Auto. Call of Duty.
People play these games, and use the other things I’ve listed every single day,
And they use them without any thought, or appreciation for where they came from.
Or how far we have progressed as humans.

So I ask you this. Who invented the desk you are sitting on?
Who invented the jacket you’re wearing?
Who invented that pen in your pocket?
You don’t know, do you?
1.4k · Feb 2019
Every Morning I Wake Up
Chris Reed Feb 2019
Every morning I wake up
I turn off my alarm
And in the dead silence, and pitch blackness,
I stare at the ceiling for a bit
As my eyes adjust to being awake
I just lay there. Thinking.
About life
About the hell of getting up
For all of about five minutes

Every morning I wake up
I get out of bed
I go to the bathroom
I splash some water on my face
I brush my teeth
I swirl around some mouthwash
I put on some deodorant
I brush my hair
I wash my face
I put on some face lotion

Every morning I wake up
I put on some warm clothes
I get a drink of water
I eat an apple or a banana or sometimes an orange



Every morning I wake up
I grab my backpack and put it on my bed
I put on my belt
I slip on my shoes
I wiggle into my coat
I get at least two decks of playing cards into my coat pocket
I get my wallet in my back pocket
I get my phone in my front pocket
I get my earbuds into my coat pocket
I get my pen into my inside coat pocket
I get my flashlight into my coat pocket
I get my hand driver tool into my pocket
I get my phone charger into my backpack

Every morning I wake up
I go through this routine
Without much thought anymore
It's natural to me
To do the same thing each and every morning

Every morning I wake up
Whether I want to or not
I lock up the dogs
I feed my turtle
I turn off all the lights
I walk out the door and lock it behind me

Every morning I wake up
I follow this routine
Step by step
Without fault


Every morning we all wake up
Even if we don't want to
Even if the only thing we want to do is just lie in bed
And not deal with today
Even if the only thing we want is just a couple more minutes of precious sleep
Just a little longer in the warmth of our blankets
Just a little longer not having to go through the true hell that is today
Just a little longer to be by ourselves

But we wake up
Every
Single
Morning

We wake up
We'll continue to wake up for the rest of our lives
Each and every morning.
I think that says something about us.
I think that shows just how resilient we really are

Every morning that we wake up
It's a big ******* to all who say we can't do it
To anybody that says we aren't strong enough
Even if you're a weeping mess all day long
Even if you don't get your schoolwork done
Even if you aren't prepared to get up
You still do.
I still do
We all
Still
Do.

I think that's just incredible.
288 · Oct 2018
Trouble
Chris Reed Oct 2018
The trouble with people today
Is addiction
Addiction to technology,
Addiction to information,
Addiction to modernity,

Every person is addicted to something
Whether it be a cell phone
Or a television
A laptop
The internet
Everybody.

What caused this?
Addiction can come from many sources
From growing up in this new age
To having access to unlimited knowledge
It truly is a problem.

But it isn't a problem.
We have access to more information now than we ever have
New technology comes out every day
Society couldn't function without technology
So we have to become addicted
To attempt to force reality into the background
To shield oneself from the horror of real life

We need technology.
We are addicted
Let's see where we take it
259 · Oct 2018
Small
Chris Reed Oct 2018
If you take a standard deck of cards
And you shuffle that deck
And you look at the order that deck is in,
You have just seen a combination of those cards never before seen in the universe.
The amount of ways to shuffle a deck of cards is 8.06e67
That is an 8 with 67 more numbers after it
That number is astronomical
There are more ways to shuffle a deck of 52 cards,
Then there are seconds in the age of the universe (13.8 Billion Years)
There are more ways to shuffle a deck of cards
Then there are grains of sand on all the planets in our galaxy.

This number is difficult to comprehend. Let's scale it back

1000 seconds, is 16 and a half minutes.
10,000 seconds is 2.7 hours.
100,000 seconds is a little over a day
1,000,000 seconds is 11 and a half days

Let's make a jump

1,000,000,000 seconds is 32 years
Let that sink in

That number is huge. 32 years is a long time
But that number is tiny.

1 Trillion seconds is 321 millennium.

Funny how big things can get.
Think about this next number
A Googol.
A googol is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. We can do better.

A Googolplex is a 1 followed by a googol of zeros
That is 10^10^100

The point of these numbers is not to show how big things can get
But it's about how small we actually are.
We as humans think we are the leaders of the universe
We think we know most of what there is.
96% of the universe is unexplored.
Hell, 95% of the Earths oceans are unexplored.
We really don't know very much

We've got a long way to go.
187 · Nov 2018
Music
Chris Reed Nov 2018
Music is an important part of any life
We listen to it every day
Whether we acknowledge it or not,
It's there.
In the background

We listen to music
With everything we do
On the subway,
in grocery stores
in the gas station
in the car.
Music is everywhere.
Music is almost essential to everyday life
It transports you to another realm
To another life
Whatever life you want
Music can provide.


Freddie Mercury
Axle Rose
Michael Jackson
Elvis Presley
Austin Post Malone
Marshall Mathers

Whoever you listen to
It was their dream to make music
Their dream fuels life
Music is such an integral part of today's society

We couldn't function without it
178 · Oct 2018
Is it my fault?
Chris Reed Oct 2018
Is it my fault
She's gone?

Is it my fault
She's depressed?

Is it my fault
She wanted to **** herself?

I wasn't enough. I thought I made her happy
I thought that she was okay
She wasn't.

Is it my fault
That this disease exists within her?
I know it's not,
But it feels like it is.

I can't enjoy things. It's my fault that she's not okay.
I want her to be okay.
Is it my fault?
Yes.
No.
I don't know anymore
171 · Feb 2019
Tradition
Chris Reed Feb 2019
Why do we have traditions?
Thinking about them, they make no sense
Think of some popular traditions:

The tooth fairy giving you money
Shaking somebodies hand
Gift giving on Christmas
Celebrating Easter with eggs and candy

Why do we shake hands when we meet somebody? We don't know where their hands have been.
Why do we give gifts on Christmas, if the holiday isn't about gift giving in the slightest?
Why do we celebrate the rebirth of Jesus with coloured eggs?

They make no sense
Tradition has been a thing of wonder for a long time
Traditions come about, they change, they die out
Some stay the same
Some are complete scams.

Wedding Rings. Most believe that it is custom to buy a diamond wedding ring for your loved one before your outrageously expensive wedding.
That's not the case at all. The De Beers Diamond Cartel started advertising diamond rings as a tradition is 1938.
That's it. Less than 100 years
They also said that diamonds were rare and worth a lot.
They aren't either of those things.
They are quite literally just carbon that is arranged in a shiny way.
And in truth, they are rare. If we compare their rarity to dirt or oxygen.
In the gem world, they are the most common gem to be found.
They are just lumps of carbon.
170 · Sep 2018
How to feel?
Chris Reed Sep 2018
I don't know how to feel.
With her gone.
I know she's coming back soon
Within the week
But I don't know how to feel

She has depression.
For the last three months
Suicidal thoughts
We hope that was it.

The day she left for the hospital
I cried for 6 hours
I got to talk to her, through text.
But it wasn't enough.
I didn't even get to see her

She told me not to lash out,
That it wasn't my fault.
But how isn't it?

I didn't notice anything different about her for the past three months.

I truly don't know how to feel.
She's been gone for four days now.
At the very earliest, she'll get out four days from now.

Every time I find myself enjoying anything,
I think about her. What she is feeling.
Whatever I'm doing loses its attraction.

I can't eat but one meal a day. Even then it tastes disgusting.
I force myself to eat because I have to stay strong.
For her.

I can't talk to her. I can't visit, text, email, or call.
I can write her notes though,
but she can't write any back.
I don't actually know if she even receives the notes.

I've barely been able to make it through work.
The last thing I want to do is to talk to people.
But that's my job. For 8 hours a day. Talk to people.

I want her to be okay. I will be here for her no matter how long it takes.
She's the love of my life.
I can't imagine living without her.

But I have to go on
She will come back
She will be okay
I don't know how long it will take
I don't know if anything will be the same
But I have to be here for her. I have to

Every day since she's been gone, I've cried for hours and cried myself to sleep.
Hell, as I'm writing this, I'm crying and choking up.
I don't know how to feel.
It feels like it's my fault she has depression, but I know it's not.

I don't know how the hell to feel.
I've felt more emotions in less than a week than I have in my lifetime.
I feel alone
But I know I'm not.

She will eventually come back. She might not be the same, but I'll still love her.
I have to go to school.
Normally we talk to each other in between each class.
Normally she drives me to and from school.
But not for a while.

I don't really know how to function.
I sit in my room staring at a white wall.
I look at my phone with facebook pulled up on it, and I just want to throw it.
I don't want to do anything.
I don't want to move.

I truly don't know how I'm supposed to feel.

But nobody can tell you how to feel.
Because nobody else knows how to feel.
This is less of a poem and more of a way to express what I'm going through and what I'm thinking. I can't talk to anybody that I know, but I can talk to thousands of strangers with ease. I left out names for privacy, but this is a true story. This is what I'm going through right now.
167 · Aug 2018
Why I Love
Chris Reed Aug 2018
You asked me why I love you
The reasons that I fell
These may be dumb, or cheesy
But I am here to tell

I love the way you smile at me
With your lips curved up ever so
I love the way you laugh with me
I need to let you know

I love the way you look at me
With a universe in your eyes
I love the way you pull me close
Before we say goodbye

I love the way you sing to me
When we are riding in the car
Whatever song ever comes on
You look like a superstar

I love the way you love me
When you run your hands through my hair
In all the lands if I had to choose
You would be the most fair

I love the way you make me feel
When you compliment me so
And when you drop me off at home
I never want to go

Whenever I do card tricks
I see the wonder in your eyes
And if I do one good enough
The time just really flies

We've been together for half a year
We may be filled with fear
Of whatever the future holds
But no matter what, we'll get through any tears
147 · Aug 2018
My Love
Chris Reed Aug 2018
My Love

Every time I see you, my love for you grows stronger
I never want you to leave my side, we'll be together longer
Every time I see you smile
My heart just leaps a mile
My love for you will forever grow
My heart beats for you, in thunder or snow
In summer or winter, fall or spring
Looking at you, makes my heart sing
We're going to grow old,
40, 50, 60 years down the line
My heart forever sold
You really are divine

I will love you forever, until the end of time
I just know we will spend all that time together
I love you so much. More than I think I will ever be able to express in this lifetime
I'm asking for any advice on this poem. This is the second poem I've ever written, and my first Love poem

— The End —