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Jack Gladstone Oct 2014
There are very few times that people have said exactly what is on my mind.
The only time i can even think of that happening is when i started dating you.
They said that if we broke up it would be my fault.
i agreed before they said it.
A girl like you one does not dump.
You're either a guy's one or his one that got away.
Jack Gladstone Aug 2014
I'm alone, you're alone
we all get together
we're alone together.
I suppose that's why we get together.
To be alone together.
Parties of aloneness is something
but
seven billion people alone together.
That's a remarkable thing.
We pair off.
Find our ones.
In these moments we are pairs of people alone.
Then it is not too bad. Not too bad at all.
Then, sometimes pairs break or have strain.
Alone leaks through.
Alone always leaks through.
Jack Gladstone Aug 2014
2 hour trip to a concert.

One of my favorite artists.

Eventually one of yours too.

She even made what ended up being our song

It was for my birthday.

It was cancelled, the concert not my birthday.

We're taking the trip anyway.

The real present was your presence.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
This is a conversation from my head, a place where i am a lot more eloquent.

I say "I've only been to a few cities, in a handful of states, in one country. I am in no way qualified to know where in the world i want to live, where i belong. I do, however, know who i belong with. I belong with you."

You say "How do you know that though? You've only been with a handful of girls, surely you haven't seen a world's worth. How do you know?"

I say "The same way i'll know when i've found my city. I know i won't see the world, but when i find my city... when it's time... i'll know. It may be a city i've known for years, just overlooked, but when i truly find it, see it as it truly is, i'll feel safe, happy, full of life... i'll feel home. Like i do with you."
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
and here we were, the kind of people who try to stop the world from spinning so ******* fast. Killing time, making money to spend to make that time killing bearable. This made up our lives; but, for a few days in the year we truly lived .
Jack Gladstone Aug 2014
listening to French pop
"I'll have liked it when it was cool before it get's cool"
sriracha sauce on pesto pizza
"The waiter was right the flavors are very complimentary to the palate."
watching a ****** "me" movie
"wow their color usage in the lighting really shows the Giallo Italian horror influence"
Listening to the Friendly Indians
"My favorite band? They are only popular in Orange County so you've probably not heard of them.... oh you have?"
watching Un Chien Andalou
"tres interessant"
reading Sartre and Nietzsche
"my favorite philosophers man."

my pretention leaking out slowly to reveal I'm just a ******* underneath this finely unkempt exterior.
Is that changing? Well no but i thought you should know anyway.
Jack Gladstone Nov 2014
I don't remember the part of my job application that said i'd be bored out of mind.

I don't remember being asked to be born in a town where things to do were so hard to find.

I don't remember telling anyone to make the fuel of my escape what can only be presumed to be unicorn blood.

I don't remember exactly when i stopped being a stud.

I don't remember when my bank account shrank.

I don't remember when i started to care about what was in the bank.

I don't remember what i wanted to forget.

I don't remember if I'm lying to keep from getting too upset.

I don't remember becoming this much of a cynic.

I don't remember turning into the crotchety folks i used to mimic.

I don't member what Dante said about Hell.

I don't remember quotes too well.

I don't remember getting this sad, mad.

I don't remember when being this angsty became so bad.

I don't remember so why then i can't stop?
Jack Gladstone Sep 2014
looking around the bonfire i see all my friends

-acquaintances, mates

and i wonder how long they'll be there

-around, with me

light dancing off their faces, music playing on ****** '90's boombox speakers

-Joshua Radin, Gorillaz, the violintastic Yellowcard

i see people i see everyday, people i haven't seen in years

-will it be that long til i see them again,
-when will my everyday friends turn into that

looking out from the fire over the river i see my unremarkable hometown

-the darkness hiding the decay, the streetlights making it look beautiful as -only this view of the city can provide

I'm moving soon as others already have. As the rest of the circle likely will

-how often will i see this "hellish black hole"

this little circle of friends spreading, our arms barely stretching to hold on

-how long can it hold

but for now we're here bullshitting a night a way and in the end that's all that matters

-i guess
Jack Gladstone Sep 2015
You: a girl in high heels, a black shirt, and a light blue shirt. Your hair dark, your lips Taylor Swift red.

Me: a guy in a monster squad t shirt and a denim jacket. Brown hair, likely tosseled from the rain earlier in the day.

We both looked at the showtimes posted for the local arthouse theater. I crossed the street and you followed. We both entered the mall. I held the door open for you. You said thank you.  You held the next door open for me.  I said thank you and smiled. You smiled back. My heart melted. I sat my things down at a table as you rounded a corner. I decided to follow you to ask if you wanted to sit and have a drink with me. As I walked around the corner you were already gone.
Jack Gladstone Nov 2014
I, Jack Gladstone (hereafter referred to as i),

Being of at least some form of mind and body write the contents of my day.

Set the scene:

It’s cold, it’s the winter and it’s cold.

It’s cold outside, it’s cold inside unless, of course, you’re wearing a sweater.

If you’re wearing a sweater you are just precisely over the border of Toowarmopolis

(population: i).

Int. an oddly nice community college library,

excellent when you consider the town it is in is occasionally the **** capital of Iowa (Ottumwa).

The main contender is nearby and is actually the other main campus for this said college (Centerville).

Coincidence? Is Indian Hills based on **** money? Is the administration a cartel?

To answer these questions in order: yes, doubtful, and of the textbook variety alone.

i sit with the courtesy headphones on listening to the Shins.

i, obviously, work on poetry assignments.

i work on my computer class.

Office is not as i remember it. It’s changed. It’s different. What means what?

i panic.

i realize it’s silly to panic.

i panic anyway.

i remind myself it is silly to panic.

i regain my composure. No one noticed.

i think.

i miss toolbars. i miss clippy. i miss words instead of symbols.

Is this what being old is like?

I’m far too young for that.

If this is me now what will i be like when I’m elderly?

Living in a world of holograms, infocubes, the wikimplant.

i lied about regaining composure before. i do that sometimes, lying i mean.
Jack Gladstone Nov 2014
"I remember, I remember everything" says quintessential action hero Jason Bourne. Personally I say he could have been better off.

I remember the out of the ordinary, a nonbeliever that I'll ever get enough.

I remember the feeling of take off on a Jet airliner, the happy clench of my hands.

I remember this year seeing some of my favorite bands.

I remember the summers of love, the winters of hate.

I remeber having far too much on my plate (last week, yesterday, this second).

I remember also the comforts of an average day.

I remember the listeneing to my record player play.

I remember the warmth of a fire on a chilly night.

I remember being okay with feeling just alright.

I remember driving around this holey town.

I remember just hanging around.

I remember the basements where so little happened so much of the time.

I remember all the friends that I could call mine.

I remember many things and yet so little.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
There is something to seeing small towns at night time.
Unpopulated it seems and yet,
there people are.
Asleep,
watching tv,
dreaming or awake thinking of life,
love,
travel.
The unfortunate ones occupied with
work,
loss,
stress.
You are there unbeknownst to them all,
on the other side of so many man made giant cubicles
out living your life.
Jack Gladstone Dec 2014
Oranges you make my hands sticky.

You make my knife sticky.

my clothes, my mouth, everything sticky.

i wonder if it is worth it just to be healthy.

i wonder if it is worth it to eat the tasty insides.

i wonder about the worth in anything when i eat you oh orange you.

You remind me of outcome - effort = worth and how i hate that about you.

Don't make me think, don't make me sad and angsty.

For God's sake your supposed to just be a fruit.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
we were just two more methland residents, dreams floating in our heads.
we were hoping to prove the american dream was not quite really dead.

but times sure change and so do dreams.

i guess.

We're not the next Spielbergs
We're not the next Mansons
we're too Fu^&ed; up for that.

but maybe some of our dreams won't die.
you and I can keep some alive.

We're not the next Clintons
We're not the next Tolstoys
we're not skilled enough for that.

I'll carry the 2.5 kids if you will buy the house.
They will paint the picket fence white and we'll hide
quiet as mice but acting like rabbits.

I'm not Ward and you're not June
but this will work out anyway.

we're not the next Cleavers
we're not the next Bradys
We're at least better than that.
Jack Gladstone Oct 2015
I was walking downtown and heard two older men talking one asked of his friend "were you doing astrophysics or astronomy while you lived in Wisconsin?"

I instantly wished that my life would turn out like this man, not in detail but in substance.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
Always thinkin' bout somethin
Always talkin' bout nothin'
Always doin nothin'

quit talkin' bout it

Just keep sing sing sing sing sing sing singin along

don't make no decisions.
counter productive tunnel vision.

we're spinnin wheels, never shiftin gears, diggin ourselves deeper in the rut.
trying to escape the black hole still covered in regional sludge.

but what are ya gonna do?
the last line is a cop out as i found this in an old notebook unfinished and lazily added that... my apologies.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
Why is it "American's hunger to move"?

Is it a lack of identity (i.e. being a mixed bag of ancestry such as Germanic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon) and the search to find one?

Is it something in the land pounded into the earth by the feet of it's nomadic natives long ago?

Is it the near constant expansion since the days of Lewis, Clark, Pike, and Hudson?

Could it be the cyclic disillusionment inevitable in the culture and economic cores of the country?

Is there just too ******* much space?

It would be easy to blame President Eisenhower for the whole thing by giving people a means of traveling the whole country so conveniently in the first place.

But I don't think that is it.

Who am I to know though? I'm not even pretending to have an answer.
I paraphrase "American's hunger to move" as I feel ethically obligated to point out that phrase is not my own but despite constant googling I cannot find it's true source
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
A wind that blows through closed windows is felt but doesn't move a thing.

I stepped out in the storm, the lightning didn't hit so i guess tomorrow's comin after all.

we use words that only Germans understand to describe journeys we will never take.

so now let's do the things we're never done before.

we'll finally get passports. we'll go to the airport and get our ***** finally outta here.

so just go. don't even tell them so. just go. send a postcard when ya get there.
Jack Gladstone Oct 2014
Adding layers to the layers of the Earth,
civilization atop civilization.

We look to the past
but if we're at the end of history who the hell needs the past?

Or, are we just another layer
that just won't even last.

Maybe i hope we're all buried.
Lost for a time.
Entombed with all the things
that i call mine

Maybe next time will be different.
Maybe the bad will all change
but i'm guessing, yeah I bet, it'll be just more of the same.

Where's my characteristic optimism?
well it's kinda there i guess.
Maybe humanity will get a well deserved rest.
Jack Gladstone Apr 2015
You're one in a billion and i know all seven of you.
One of them is me,
one of them is you,
the rest are scattered amongst these other kindred spirits that have found a home in each other.
In basements.
On the beach.
Fireside.
In each other's hearts.
In each other's arms.

Some of the yous work by feeling too much.
Some of us work by thinking too much.
We all come to the same misguided conclusions

So now until the end of whatever amount of time we have together
we sit, us seven, in our circle and do whatever it is we do.
Circling the drain, circling the letters on the multiple choices of life.
I hear guessing c's turns out alright
Jack Gladstone Oct 2014
Got my head buried in the ground
my feet are stuck in the clouds.
My boots are kickin' but that's no way to get out.

Deep in this hole i'm in, feet peddlin',
can't see through all this ground.

Looks like I'm stickin' around.

Don't wanna be round here
would rather be there (where?) anywhere.
Don't wanna be where folks are all the same,
oh god guys just forget my name.

This methland midwest community,
it ain't as bad as i make it out to be.
Perhaps the problem is at least a little me.

Or maybe it isn't.
Maybe this blackhole is bad luck.
Or maybe... ah who gives a ****.

Don't wanna be round here
would rather be there (where?) anywhere.
Don't wanna be where folks are all the same,
oh god I hope i forget this place's name.

Half the roads are closed,
even detours,
the rest are filled with potholes.

That's okay.
My sense of direction ***** anyways.


Don't wanna be round here
would rather be there (where?) anywhere.
Don't wanna be where folks are all the same,
oh God, i wish it were easier to forget.
Jack Gladstone Aug 2015
It’s been too long since I’ve had a mental breakdown.
I feel it building that a pressure valve.
It’s been too long since I’ve had a good cry.
The other day someone told me it had been a long time since someone made them cry.
I congratulated them
only to realize the same was true for me and I don’t know how happy I am about that.
At least when someone made me cry it meant I had someone who could make me cry.

It’s been too long since I’ve been in love. I mean real love.
Just the other the day I was in love with a girl I saw on the street.
In my head her name was May, like the month but she was sick of people saying that to her.
In my head I talked to her and she talked to me and we went on a date and then another.
She met my parents and at first my mom didn’t like her as her hair was too short.
“How feminine could she be?” my mother would say
My mom would change her mind when May pretended to have the same opinion on some big issue
like gun control or the Casey Anthony trial.
In my head May is such a sweet heart.
We’d be happy for a long time and we’d get married and see the world,
I’d be successful and she would do whatever made her happy too.
We grew old in my head
and then we died in my head.
First she would die of cancer then I of a broken heart.
By the time all this conspired in my brain she was across the street and I decided it wasn’t worth the heartache to pursue her. Yes, it’s been too long since I’ve been in love and was loved in return. Since someone held my hand. Since someone looked me in the eyes and read my mind, my mind worn on the sleeves used wiping the tears of laughter from my face.

It’s all been too long.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
We don't fight. Not really.

Set the scene:

i do something stupid.  
This could be a great number of things
but even i agree they're all stupid.

You know i agree but are usually still mad.
and always rightly so.

Our relationship is far healthier
with this understanding and yet
in this time i almost wish we fought.
At least i'd have a side worth defending.

Instead your face turns into an ice sculpture made by Michaelangelo,
not the ninja turtle.

In this time,  without my best friend
(companion,  confidante)
i am alone.

Slowly your anger melts away.
You give me your hand.  You kiss me.
In this time I know that all is right in this world, even if it is one where I ***** things up, as I am loved by the one I love.
Jack Gladstone Jul 2014
People get annoyed, I'm sure for how I talk about you.

Work you into conversations, tell stories about you. I wonder if you are the same about me.

I stare at you when you aren't looking without shame for you are mine. I wonder if you do the same as I am yours.

My head rests best on my pillow when it contains your scent and I wonder if mine comforts you the same

I see you in the moon, in the stars. Where is it that you see me?

Maybe you do completely different things that are just as goofy as I do.

In short I know that you love me but I know not how. What that entails. What it means to you.

My love.
Jack Gladstone Jan 2015
To write down all my fears would take a book.

My desires even more.

The big problem, however, is where they overlap.

To desire what i fear at least seems adventuresome, almost romantic.

Scary yes, but exciting. Like a roller coaster ride with a fear of falling, like i do.

Adulthood, the scary but most wonderful time of life.

Then there is the fear of what i desire.

That is a whole other beast entirely.

What if my desires are not good for others?

What if my desires steer me wrong?

What if i follow one path when another would have been better?

What if i don't achieve my desires?

What if all these existential, angsty thoughts are complicating things and themselves standing in the way?

What if?

What if indeed.
Jack Gladstone Aug 2014
i doubt you know how much you mean to me.
If you did you'd be too creeped out to still be dating me.
But to me, you mean the world.
Not the "i'm nothing without you" kind, as I am a valid human being.
Not the "i can't go on if you leave" kind either as i know i could.
But i would really rather not.
Nor could i happily.
You're my world in the way that you make me a better person.
You are why i stay healthy when all i have is a cold.
You're why i drive safe and limit the stupid angsty **** i do
(believe it or not it is limited).
You're a good influence.
You're everything i wish i was and all that beachy *******.
But you're so much more.
When i am lost you're my guide
(rife with dat symbolism)
needed more after i got GPS oddly.
When i can't think you're my muse.
You're my companion in this world whether you realize that or not.
The hotter, smarter, funnier,
more responsible, more beautiful half of me.
A liver half is enough to live but to live well it is best for a full one.
To continue this bad metaphor i am living well.

— The End —