Cold Blankets

Life and school (which isn't included in life) and conversations and all have been pretty heavy lately, so I sat down with the intent of writing something happy.

That's as far as I really got.

It's frustrating that negative emotion expressionism has become a fad and brutally butchered to the point that it has its own clothing, hair, and music style. I'm not talking about when a woman's husband dies and she wears black. I'm talking about the fact that you can't say, "I'm unhappy" without some retarded punk who, if he put thought into it, probably feels similar the majority of the time saying, "Pfft emo fag."

There's a difference between being an emo trendwhore and wanting to be honest with yourself.

I write poetry to show to one or two friends who won't be too hard on it, but will help me improve. An emo writes poetry so people will tell him how deep and thoughtful he was, then he can brush off the compliment and pretend that's not what he cared about.

I listen to music that reflects my mood. Emos listen to music to sculpt their moods for them.

I frown because I don't like people to bother me. Emos frown because if they didn't, it would hurt their image of being unnecessarily antisocial, and no one would come up to ask them what was wrong, giving them a platform to launch into a prefabricated speech about suffering.

I used to cut myself because I was fucking crazy. Emos do it, lightly, to be obvious about it and wear it as a sign that is supposed to say "Stay back: I'm hardcore," but just comes across as "Ignore me: I create problems so I can complain."

I don't feel certain emotions because my brain has been royally fucked by epilepsy and the early stages of schizophrenia. Emos claim not to feel to be mysterious and try to draw people to them so someone will read their fake, shallow non-poetry.

Being Emo is about having an intensely enhanced sense of empathy (although apparently not for any positive emotions) and being able to deeply feel sorrow and suffering in the self and in others. Emo is passive introverted sadness and self-victimization with the world as the enemy.

I have empathy only so far as the emotions that I am capable of having, which include ecstasy as well as rage. I am generally apathetic to the plights of others and my true and greatest enemy will always be the hollow, soulless half of me.

They are a heart compass, I am a calculator. They bleed to feel alive, I bleed to die.

The false mass-representation of individuality posed through an entire sub-genre spawned by people who couldn't handle being entirely gothic is something that I have no reference toward other than I pity and despise it at the same time.

I am unique in my state of being only insofar as my mind has been distorted by physical and psychological disorders that are not present in the majority of people.

I dress the same as everyone else. I speak the same, I go to the same places, I have the same goals and desires. What I cannot feel or understand I simply emulate as successfully as possible.

They get off the bus and try to stand out and be untouchable.

I step off the bus and become untouchable because I am unidentifiable in the midst of the crowd.

So. No. I am not emo. This accusation only even arises for the exact reasons that I am not: I am not ashamed of myself to the point that I would change my lifestyle, appearance, and who I am to fit in. I am so unashamed of myself that I readily present my negatives to such an extent that it becomes difficult to label them without resorting to blanket terms.

But please, if you have to choose one, pick one that fits.

It's just honesty.

As I look at the crowd of emo clones trying to stand out from one another and the rest, I can see why honesty is the last term that comes to mind for most of us.

People don't have to be lumped into a group to be appreciated and recognized. Call me emo, extremist, commie, geek, brainiac, freak, underachiever...it doesn't matter. I'm me. Just Red. Why is it such a bad thing to just refer to someone that way?

It's late and I'm rambling. I get called far more offensive things than emo on a daily basis. Hell, I live with a wannabe anti-Semite. I don't really know why this term makes me grit my teeth to the extent that it does. I think it's because someone who would call me emo either heard everything I had to say so far and didn't understand jack shit of it, or zoned out after five words and is totally apathetic.

Branding someone as something like that is just a shortcut to not having to think.

"What's Blis like?"
"Lil emo, sarcastic, humorous."

"What's P-chan like?"
"Lil emo, sarcastic, humorous."

"What's Shrugs like?"
"Lil emo, sarcastic..."

They're not the same people. Blanket terms always fail to such an extreme. I guess why I'm still going on and can't seem to just shut up about this is that it's so -illogical- to pull out these terms.

I've been described as a lot of things. Intense, quiet, sad, silly, smart, retarded, loud, kind, an asshole, boring, crazy, perfectly normal, upstanding, a criminal.

Never as unique. Maybe it's because I'm not, but for the time being, I'm set on believing that it's because the people who do this sort of thing cannot think in a unique way themselves.