Jordan Antonacci's Blog, page 54

A Letter to Myself

Dear You,

No one in my life has ever caused me more problems than you.

They say nobody changes. With you, I’ve found that’s true, but it’s not. I’ve watched you change in the best way, yet remain the same in the worst.

All you care about, all you see, is yourself. The hunger of others is thrown in the wind while you feast. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. You have tunnel vision on your own distorted reflection while everyone else drowns in the waters in which you stare. Every relationship that comes, you kill. How many bodies have you buried, Monster? How many broken hearts have you collected and how many lies has your wicked tongue spit?

You are going to be alone. Forever. Just you and the resonating hum of your hollow black heart. You’ll never learn to care. You’ll never learn to love. Give that heart to someone who knows of it’s worth. You’re wasting it. Much like the life you’ve been given and the privileges you stomp while chasing petty craves.

You are the most self-destructive, narcissist, egotistical person I’ve ever met, and it doesn’t matter how much harm you cause yourself and everyone around you… you just keep doing the same shit. It doesn’t matter what you do or where you go, your patterns follow. You follow. No matter what you do, no matter where you run, you can’t escape yourself.

“Everyone wants an Argentina, a place where the slate is wiped clean. But the truth is… Argentina, is just Argentina. No matter where we go, we take ourselves and our damage with us. So is home the place we run to, or is it the place we run from? Only to hide out in places where we’re accepted, unconditionally; places that feel more like home to us. Because we can finally be who we are…”

-Dexter

You’re my best friend and my worst enemy. I love you but I hate you. You just are what you are—and if I could, I’d cut myself from you; free my conscience from your ever-present maliciousness and live happily. But wherever I am, you’re there, bringing me down. Because of you, I’ll never get to live a normal life, and I’ll forever resent you for that truth.

Truly yours,

You

Hey peoples,

Thanks for stopping by and reading. Looks like I’ll be off work this next week, so I’m going to work really hard on this little project I’ve been mentioning, and hopefully, I’ll have something to share with you all this weekend.

Also, maybe taking a trip to Knoxville (again) next weekend. Pretty pumped about that.

Happy Friday!

Poem: This Red Sea

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This Red Sea

A red sea

of broken memories

floods deep

into all of me

It seeps beneath

this dam I’ve built

This armor-like skin

and wraps me in its current

Its waves rise

and crash mercilessly

bombarding the shores

of my sanity

A raging tsunami

through the streets of my home

washing away debris

and all I’ve ever known

And now everything

I once held dearest

has been destroyed by the memories

I cannot forget

Within this red sea

where my broken memories bleed

to the bottom, I sink

within this red sea

-Jordan Antonacci

Twitter: @misterhushhush

Poem: The End

Hello. I am back. Back from the dead, you could say…

No not really. I’m just being dramatic. Like usual.

So, for the last week and a half, I’ve kinda been away. But not really… I made a new site (jordanantonacci.com), and for the first little bit it was amazing, but for whatever reason, my posts were only reaching a select handful of my followers. Like, a baby’s handful. It was a self-hosted site so I’m sure I fucked something up somewhere.

I ultimately had WordPress migrate my followers and stats back to the original site (mrhushhush.com) this morning.

New Project

While I was letting WordPress mess with the site for a bit, I took opportunity of the downtime to begin another project. This was a week ago.

Now, I don’t want to spill the beans just yet–I’m still in the beginning stages with this project, but I’ll definitely be posting about it as soon as it’s ready.

I’m pretty fucking excited!!!

Why you should never give up

Albert Einstein said, “I have tried 99 times and have failed, but on the 100th time came success.”

If there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s that we all have dreams, and we all have goals. Whether they be microscopic or too grand to wrap your head around, they reside within all of us, eagerly waiting to be brought to life. But, as each of us eventually come to learn, making these dreams a reality isn’t always easy.

Let’s say you’re chasing this dream and have tried 1,392 times to catch it. Each time, you have failed. You feel like you’re giving CPR to a corpse as rigid as a mannequin. It’s pointless. You’re down on your hands and knees, crying, screaming; you’re exhausted, burnt out, lost, and can’t even begin to think of trying again. Not even one more time. You’ve given it your everything and you can’t stand even the thought of facing failure one more time. So, what do you do? You give up. Throw in the towel. Walk away. Move on. It’s over.

But what if…

…what if somewhere written in the stars it said that on your 1,393rd attempt you’d achieve everything you had been working so hard for? What if all those other failed attempts were necessary just to get you to where you need to be?

Well, that’s a door you’d never see opened if you decided to give up.

We’re not always ready when we think we are. As a writer, I’ve had to learn that the hard way. The embarrassing way. When I was 18 I wrote my first book and sent it out to everyone I knew. No one really finished reading it, and years down the road (when I had a better grasp of the craft) I understood why. I had written what I thought was my best work (and at the time, it was), so I was baffled when I kept getting rejection after rejection after rejection, and so on… But now I see that I just wasn’t ready.

Remember:

“Nothing worth having comes easy.”

-Theodore Roosevelt

If I’m being honest, I was sincerely considering taking a long break from writing (at the least) when I got my acceptance email from Z House. I can’t even begin to tell you about all the late nights and early mornings at the keyboard. All the pieces I thought were my golden tickets toward publication that only brought back either crickets or rejections. Ugh, those damned rejections. They say not to take it personally, but after a while, it’s like, What the hell is happening?!

I was really about to step away from my dream before I got that email. Receiving my first acceptance only revitalized my determination. I was stupid for even considering stopping. Now, so many new doors have opened. Getting published was only the first step, and I couldn’t be more eager to plop myself down at the keyboard with an espresso and a new plot brewing in my head.

Never give up. When you feel like quitting, remember why you started in the first place. It’s okay to go down. It’s inevitable, really. If you don’t fail, then you’re not trying hard enough. It’s okay to cry, and it’s okay to scream… so long as you keep going. What’s not okay is giving up.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this motivational post gave you enough of a jumpstart to prepare yourself for Monday tomorrow

Poem: Everything and Nothing

I’m a sun that’s

burnt out

A star that’s become

a black hole

I’m a hero

and the villain

of the same

movie

I’m an ocean that

nothing wants to

swim in

A sky

nothing wants to

fly in

I’m hurt without

gain

Love without

pain

I’m a heart

with no beat

A phone

with no ring

A voice

that can’t speak

Flesh

that won’t bleed

Lips that don’t

know how to kiss

A life that doesn’t

know how to live

I am everything

I am nothing

Happy Saturday, everyone! Enjoy your weekend

Poem: The Heart of this Pen

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It’s flooding deep

This emotion

Deeper than

The trenches of an ocean

The sky

The Grand Canyon

Sun and moonlight

All contained

Within this pen

I’ve drained my heart

With memories like shards

And the blood I bleed

Is turned to ink

Now everything

All that I see

Is turned to red

And shed here for you to read

The heart of this pen

It is where I live

Even after I’ve written

The words, The End

I give it life

As i write

And in return

It saves mine

Thanks for reading! Oh, and happy hump day; you’re already halfway there

I’m getting published!!!!!

Work today was a grueling pain in the ass. I work HVAC in Dallas and temperatures today got up to 105. Pretty sure I came close to having a heat stroke, but then again, that’s almost every day.

After the 9-hour shift was done, I said bye to my boss, got in my car, and began driving to home sweet home. I put my headphones in, enjoyed some music, and watched the sunset as I drove. Then a notification on my phone cut off my tunes and interrupted my trance. Who the hell? How dare they. Don’t they know I’m in that I-barely-survived-today state and am teetering on the edge of homicidal maniac? 

I checked my phone. It was an email. I read the first few sentences from the preview the phone shows on the lock screen: We would like to congratulate you on having your writing accepted…

“What the fuck.” I immediately call no other than… Mom. Tell her I’m being published. She’s hysterical. As am I. I’m still hysterical.

So, back in March, I received an email through my blog from someone at Z House Publishing; they requested I submit a short story to them. I lost it. After two weeks I submitted three.

Then I waited. Days, weeks, and eventually months went by, and I hadn’t heard anything back. I accepted defeat yet again and continued on my journey toward publication elsewhere.

Then… this.

Literally, my one dream, the one constant thing on my mind for the past five years, has been getting published. And it’s finally happening. Publishers, editors read my writing, and not only decided they liked it but decided they’d like to publish it. After years of rejection letters, this is literally one of the best days of my life. With enough perseverance, determination, and hard work, you really can make your dreams a reality. My head is exploding. OMFG!

Okay, I just wanted to let you all know

Poem: This Need

Like all the blood

rushing like a stream

this need

it runs deep

Starving for it

always

Even when I

just ate

Stomach growls like

thunder

as my pillars of sanity

crumble

I can’t

say no

I don’t want to

say no

It tells me

that I’m free

despite the chains

around my wrists and feet

It says if I want to

I can leave

And these words

I believe

I believe

The Devil on my shoulder

The shadow in the dark

The chill when it gets colder

The break of a heart

This need

comes calling like

a howling through the trees

or a siren that can

empty a city

And my bloodstream

begins to run

as my heart beats like

tribal drums

This need

claims to want to heal me

But this need

I think is trying to kill me

I can’t

say no

even if I want

to say no

Hey guys! Well, it looks like we’ve made it to Monday. So… I guess it’s time for us to go back to work now… Anyone as excited as me? *The world’s smallest violin plays over distant sobbing.*

No, I’m just kidding. My boss leaves town next week so I’m about to have a whole week off

Changes

At some point in our lives, we’ve all had someone tell us “Change is good.” Some poor souls have had to suffer as those hounding words were repeatedly hammered into them (ahem, teenage me, ahem). It took my angsty self awhile to understand and accept those words. And they were hammered with necessity–I was a little shit.

Change is good. As far as those words go, I understand plenty of people agree and plenty don’t. I also understand that those who don’t are most likely intimidated by the thought of abandoning their comfort zone. But real life happens outside of your comfort zone. At least, that’s what I read somewhere on the internet.

And as Will Smith said in a very motivational video, “The best things in life are on the other side of fear.”

Cut to a scene of my brother in his bedroom, behind a computer screen, blinds closed, and a weeks’ worth of snacks littered around him.

I wonder if he reads the blog…

[image error]Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Eh.

Anyway, I’ve spent this post thus far building up a lot of hype for… nothing really. If you were expecting some life-altering reveal, then sorry. I haven’t finally decided to learn how to love and I’m not running for president. The big change I’ve gotten you pumped up for is…

My website! The blog–whatever. Actually, yeah, my website, because the first big change is…

I now own a domain!

That’s right! mrhushhush.com is all mine

Poem: The Fall

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The comedown

after the high

The fall

from soaring heights

The crash that makes me think

I’m about to die

The tulip that bloomed

only to wither

The reminder that I’m not

what I drew in the picture

The reason why I

never wish to remember

The silence of the music

and the fiddler

A fallback to me

before yesterday

before I knew sun

and lived in shade

This is the me

where I have to fake

Draw on the mask

Yes, I’m okay

Nothing lasts forever.

Thanks for reading,

Jordan Antonacci

Twitter: @misterhushhush

Just put a song on YouTube! Check it out