Happy Veterans Day 2014

"The Forgotten"
By Kelvin Rodeo 

Every year, we dedicate one day in November 
To thank our veterans and appreciate 
Their service and sacrifice, to tell them we remember
By offering them some free food on a plate.

We revel in this day and thank every veteran we see
Or encounter when we go out
But we forget about those who from society are absentee
Many of whom are the real thing that this day is about.

What of our brothers and sisters who live in the dark
Forgotten by our government and our society
Many of whom forced to live on the streets or at the park
Many even suffering from mental illnesses of a variety.

One in every four homeless people is a veteran
Someone who put their lives on the line in the service of this nation
But we seem to have forgotten about these brethren
And their numbers grow larger generation after generation.

But what about those who do have a home
And have still apparently been forgotten
The ones who live in their own little personal dome
Whose minds and thoughts are left to become rotten?

What about our brothers and sisters fighting internal battles every day
Anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, PTSD
They've got so many internal demons to slay
Ignored and abandoned by the bourgeoisie?

Every day, at least 22 veterans commit suicide
Succumbing to the demons that plague their mind
Too tired of all the times they've cried
While everyone else, to their plight, was blind.

Americans believe that we are free
Every year we thank our veterans for it
But how thankful can anyone truly be
When so many of our veterans, we have allowed society to omit?

I dedicate this day to the forgotten and abandoned among us
Those who truly deserve all of this attention
About their situation we need to start a fuss
Happy Veterans Day to those who are never mentioned.

I've given up.

Life just seems to trivial, so pointless now. It's pathetic, but I honestly don't care about my life or my future anymore. I mean, it's not like I'll amount to anything in life, anyway, right? As far as my dad's concerned, I'm just a useless 23 year-old kid who does nothing to contribute to society, let alone the home I live in. I mean, after having my dad rub it in my face the other day, it just really hit me deep at my core, the fact that I really am useless and nothing I've done is of any worth and I'll never amount to anything in life. I haven't been able to sleep since that night, and I haven't been going to school this week. What's the point? I'll just mope around lost in my own little world of self-loathing; it'll just be another bother for everyone else.

I tried to make my life mean something by being an activist and fighting against injustice and corruption no matter where I encountered it, but even that has become meaningless to me. I mean, it's not like the things I say or post actually have any effect. Who am I, for it to affect people on that level? I'm no one famous, my word means shit to the world. I'm just another random crazy fanatical conspiracy nut to everyone. I suppose, if I don't die anytime soon, I'll end up being that deranged lonely old man who lives by himself who everyone stays away from. I'll just be another washed up meaningless waste of a life.

At this point I'd imagine I've been dropped from my classes for my absences. Oh well. It's not like school was actually doing anything for me anyway. I was going to school to try to feel like I meant something to this world. I was going to school because I thought I had a future to work towards. But I see the pointlessness of it all, now. Deep down, I know that it's all pointless because I'll never be more than just this useless shell of a human being. I'm empty. Nothing seems to be enjoyable anymore. Nothing that I used to find joy in can comfort me now, it seems. Playing games isn't as fun since that night. Watching my favorite Japanese shows isn't as enjoyable anymore. Even Doctor Who and Torchwood can't seem to shake me from this. Oh well, I guess this is just the way my life goes.

My best friend Cole even called me all the way from Iowa the night that it happened, and it did help me a little bit, but the next morning I was in the same shitty mood again. I just don't see the point of anything anymore, you know? If my dad thinks that all I ever do with my life is sit at home playing games on the Xbox and computer, then I'll just have to live up to his expectations. And that's exactly what I've been doing since that night, staying home playing Xbox all day. It's not even that fun for me anymore since that night, but whatever. At least this way I'll finally be living up to someone's expectations. It's ok, I've accepted that that's all I'm good for. I'll probably just end up being a sad, fat, 30 year old kid who lives with his parents and stays at home playing video games all day. Oh well, I guess that's my role in life. I'd never kill myself; I could never do such a thing. But this is my life now, hopeless, no future, no nothing. Sucks to be me. Here's to life!

Soliloquy

I'm a useless 23 year-old kid who lives at home and leeches off of my parents because I can't get a job no matter how hard I try and how long I look. I'm worthless. Useless. A useless eater. I'll never amount to anything in life, and nothing seems to have any real meaning anymore; I have no drive, no motivation to do anything. I'm not even taking school seriously, to the point of probably failing at least one class this semester. Even all of my activism has begun to feel pointless. It's not like I'm actually making a difference in this world, anyway. I mean, who the fuck am I, this lowly peasant named Kelvin Rodeo, for people to believe what I say and do? I'm nothing, I'm nobody. My existence is a worthless one. Everything that I did was to try to start feeling something about life again, but I quickly discovered that all of that, too, will fade away and disappear. I guess nothing can really be exciting when you're such a worthless person.

I mean, really! What have I done in my 23 years of this worthless existence that anyone will ever have a good memory about? Absolutely nothing! When I die, I will just be some other guy who died, no one special, no one worth talking about or mourning over. I'm all alone in this cold, dark place. But it's ok. I'm just a fucked up kid who fucks up everything he touches. It's good that I'm alone, can't hurt anyone that way. I'm so tired of this. All of it. This thing called life is a joke. What's the point of it all? Why am I on this earth if all I can do is fuck up and piss people off or make them sad? What a cruel joke if that is all there is to this existence. Who would want to live a life like that? A life where I only hurt the people who try to help me. I'll never be a good person no matter what I do. I can pray and pray and pray for change and I can try my hardest to change but no matter what, I always fuck up in the end and prove that I haven't changed. Do my prayers fall on deaf ears? Most likely, but it doesn't hurt to try. But I'm tired of trying. Tired of it all and how pointless it is. Why am I alive? Why must I cause so much suffering? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!?

Sometimes I wish I could just go crazy, like be one of those people in an insane asylum who isn't there at all because they're in their head in some imaginary world all the time. I figure that's the only way out of this. I'm so pathetic I can't ever kill myself because deep down I'm too scared to die. Because I know how much more pain that would cause, and I couldn't bear that kind of a burden, even in the afterlife.

*sigh*

You know what I hate? I hate making my mom sad and/or mad. I love her too much, and it pains me to see her any way but happy. But you know what I hate more than that? Myself, because no matter what I do or say, I will always end up making my mom sad and/or mad. Tonight my mom came to my door to ask me if I was an atheist, because she sees everything that I post that is atheist-related. We got into an argument over it because she said that it offended her and that I shouldn't post any of that stuff up and then I told her that Facebook was the only thing in my life that I still had control over, so I didn't appreciate that she was trying to tell me what I could and couldn't post on Facebook.

Then she said that I should stop posting that kind of stuff because it offends her, so I told her that if it offends her, she should just remove me from her friends list so that she doesn't have to see my posts on her newsfeed anymore. Later she brought up that she raised us to be Christians/Catholics and I told her that it was absurd that she wanted me to still believe (even after everything that I've been through in life, and all the books and research that I've read, etc.) up to now. And then at one point she said "Just don't question those things," and then that's when I just really blew up on her. I wasn't shouting at the top of my lungs of whatever, but there was a definite increase in my volume as my frustration was at its peak levels at the time. And then she said something and just walked away.

I know I made her sad and/or mad because of all that tonight, and it's killing me right now. This is even worse than the last time I had to deal with something like this. Why do I have to decide either to not offend my mom or to continue to be the authority-questioning freethinker that I really am? It's really depressing me to know that I'm offending my mom just by being myself and posting things that question everything that I've been taught all my life. It's just……I don't even know. *sigh* I love my mom so much, and I don't want to offend her and I don't want to make her sad/mad and anything like that, but can I really stop being myself? Can I really resist the urge to post the things that I always post? It's killing me!!!! This is who I am, and I can't change that. I don't want to live a lie and pretend like I'm this God-fearing Christian kid that she raised. I can't. And that kills me, because I know that it upsets her, but I can't change anything about it.

I've cried multiple times tonight after that incident, and I am crying as I type this blog entry right now. You have no idea how much it kills me to have upset my mom tonight. I was just being myself and doing what I normally do. I'm sorry. Sometimes, life is just really shitty, you know? I fucking hate my life. Sometimes, I wish that I had never been born, because my entire existence is littered with numerous instances of me upsetting my mom. Time after time, no matter what I do and no matter how I try to change, I always, always upset my mom in the end. And it kills me to know that that is my existence in a nutshell. What kind of life is that, to know that no matter what you do you will always be hurting your mother in the end? Over and over again. I'm so sick of it.

In case anyone was wondering, THIS is why I don't believe in your kind and loving God, who, I learned from the 8 years that I went to Christian schools, supposedly plans out everything in our lives before we are even born. Why would he make me just to live out a life that he had planned out in advance, in which my very existence means my mother would suffer for as long as I live? If he really does exist, and he really does plan everything out like I was taught in school, then that God of yours is one mean ass deity, and I refuse to worship it ever again, let alone believe in its existence. Too bad that still doesn't change the fact that no matter what I do, I'm always gonna end up upsetting my mother. *sigh*

I don't know

I'm pathetic. I can't live with myself anymore but I can't just off myself either because even thinking about it brings tears to my eyes knowing how much pain I'll be causing the people I love the most. Just change, you tell me. Change, if you're not satisfied with the way your life is going. Easy for you to say. You don't know me. You don't know my life. You don't know what I go through on a daily basis. No one does. I keep it all locked up inside me because no one cares about what I'm going through. Everyone has their own problems to worry about. No time for me or my problems. And I don't want to be a burden on anyone anyway, so I don't go around telling everyone that I meet that I'm fucked up in the head and in life. Something is wrong with me. Something is terribly wrong with me. My life is shit. I'm in over my head in debt with no job and no income to pay it all off. I've been looking for a job for the past year and have had no luck whatsoever. I'm pretty much convinced that I'll never get a job, considering how the search has gone so far. I've pretty much fallen back into the same shithole I was in before school started. School helped for a while but now it seems like things are back to the way they were before. I'm probably failing all my classes now and I'm struggling to get by because I can't even afford my textbooks. Because I couldn't afford textbooks, my motivation was shot straight out the window. It didn't help that none of my teachers but one were motivational or interesting. I'm almost fully convinced now that college isn't for me, which then makes me think 5 years into the future where I'm a homeless bum scraping by with my failure of a life. Sometimes I just want to escape from it all. From this world. Take a nice little Soma vacation like they do in Brave New World. But even that would be useless, because as soon as that vacation is over I'd just be right back in this shithole of a life. I thought I could bring meaning back to my life by being a political activist and by fighting for what I believe in and trying to rile the masses of the CNMI into action, but even there I have failed. I guess I really am good at nothing but failing…. in all avenues of my life it seems that is my one common theme…..failure. So tell me, why am I still here? What point is there to my useless, worthless failure of a life? I just can't seem to figure it out. I can't ever kill myself. I won't. I refuse. But I do know that I cannot continue living this sorry excuse for a life. I'm pathetic. Goodbye for now, I guess I will take that Soma vacation, after all...

Tired

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the point of life on this Earth?

Obviously, I've been cursed since my birth.

Between the problems of this world and the problems of my own personal life,

My world is filled with far too much strife.

So much strife that I really don't want to go on.

I wish I could believe in the existence of a new dawn.

But no such thing exists; things will always be the same…

The problems abound and are far too many to name.

People keep telling me that things will get better,

But I think there's a better chance of us never seeing Rick Santorum wear another vest style sweater.

I'm tired. I'm so, so tired.

Sometimes I wish I could just be permanently fired.

Is there any hope? I just don't know.

If there is, it's moving towards me way too slow.

Way to go, Kelvin….*sigh*

I'm a fraud. A phony. I go about professing about love and how love is the answer and love will save us all and how we should love everyone and blah blah blah…. but I just can't do that anymore. I mean, how can I go around telling people about love when I can't even bring myself to love ME? I just don't love myself…not one bit. I despise my very being. I loathe the image I see in the mirror. I break everything I touch and I fuck everything up for everyone.

It's only the first day of the new year and I couldn't even do something as simple as keep a new year's resolution. My new year's resolution was to do everything in my power to make this a family again….to finally bring us back to the happy family that we once were….but I can't even do that. Not even a whole day into the new year and already I got into an altercation with my mother which resulted in me choosing to stay at home while the rest of the family goes down to Anaheim to visit an old family friend. *sigh*

I'm so fucking stupid….sometimes I just don't even want to exist anymore if all I ever do is cause the people I hold dearest a bunch of pain and misery. Goddammit. I can't ever do anything right. I hate myself so much…so much for a new year and a new start….it's just the same ole stupid me, continuing to fuck everything up for people. What's the point of even living anymore? The anti-depressants are obviously not even working on me anymore. Oh well…whatever, I guess. *sigh*