Unreachable

I like to be unreachable
Untouchable
Untouchables

cause you can't hit a moving target
and "you have to be a man"

I like to let my cell phone die
cause when cell phones die
do they still dream?

Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Asked, Phillip K. Dick

Is it hip?
to ask questions like that
in 2014

cause in 2000
there was a Space Odyssey

and in 1984
there was big brother

and 2015 years ago
I would have been unreachable

I wonder what Socrates
Aristotle
Plato
Da Vinci

are doing now?

it's all Greek to me
but when in Rome...

What would you do?
Where is Michelangelo?
Oh no,
Where am I?

I'm unreachable
I guess my cell phones dead
but miraculously I am still alive

and it's just sitting in my pocket
but it's dead
oh no

I wonder what happened to it's head
I said
As I watched my cell phone
bleed
or is it bled?

And I saw the color red
cause red is the color of the sun with my eyes closed

I can still taste you
When I close my eyes

But I don't think I like the taste
you don't know how sick you make me?
you're so vain I bet you think this poem is about you
but it's not
cause it's all about me, myself and I
me, me, me
I'm so selfish and
you

you make me, so sick
you make me sick to my stomach
puke, but I'm not eminem

he's the man
and i reach into my pocket
and i pick out more
M&M's

and my cell phones still dead
I guess I didn't listen to what they said

unreachable
cause my cell phone's still dead
I guess I didn't hear what they said.

I like to be unreachable
untouchable
unacknowledged
unmanageable

I like to be this way
I like to be unhelpable
unflappable
unteachable
unmanageable

I like be underdeveloped
I like to be diagnosed
I like to be classified

I like to be unreachable
unteachable
untouchable
undiagnosed
unclassified

declassified
because my life is one big classification
I mean one big misclassification
I mean clarification
wait, let me clarify

I mean
I like it when my cell phones dead
even though they say its 2014
get with the times

but I read the new york times everyday
does that make me a better person
to get depressed before breakfast

but if my cell phones dead,
but but but
if's, and's and buts in my face

cause I'm just wondering
unwavering
waning, waxing, wilting
writing
building while one device is dead
creating while I'm unreachable

not able to be reached
not able to be touched

even though my cell phone is dead....
Why do I still feel so alive?

Open Letter to UPenn Administrators in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and College of Arts and Science and All

To The Penn Community:

It is never easy when someone you know passes away. It is extremely difficult and beyond my comprehension when a young woman with her whole life ahead of her commits suicide. I write this letter in the wake of Madison Holleran's tragic death but this letter is not about Madison and all the amazing things she accomplished, this letter is for the Penn Community and for all the students who have ever struggled with any type of mental health issues.

You know it is weird because people die everyday, and when you respond people tend to say just focus on yourself, make yourself a better person. Well, maybe we have to stop focusing on ourselves and maybe we have to recognize that there is a major problem. It is unfortunate that we are busy blaming the victims when we are not looking at the institutions. For example, the mental institutions and hospitals that are incapable of helping people with so called "mental illness." Or, the psychiatrists and doctors that believe that prescribing a pill will make things better. Or, the Universities that are "putting education first." Putting Education before Health is not part of any sustainable system in the 21st century.

I learned the hard way that Universities and Institutions do not care about student's feelings they just care about keeping their jobs and following protocol.

There is a known link between Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRI)-prescriptions and suicidal behaviors. SSRIs are the most commonly prescribed antidepressant. So sadly, the pill that doctors prescribe may lead to more hard than good. Unfortunately, the patient believes they are seeking help and the psychiatrist prescribes an SSRI. One of the most commonly prescribed medicines for depression for adolescents and college-aged students is Zoloft.

The student in seek of any type of help takes the pill and then they wonder why their feelings get worse and sadly, some people act on their feelings and end up committing suicide. The saddest part of suicide is that nearly every single person that survives a suicide attempt regrets trying. The amount of devastation that suicide can inflict on a community and a family can not be quantified. That is why facts and statistics are of little importance when it comes to the value of an individual's life.

Let's stop pretending like the problems do not exist.

Let's stop trying to put band-aids on bullet wounds.

Let's recognize that there is a major problem, and it is how institutions such as UPenn treat the so called "mentally ill."

How many deaths does it take to realize that there is something wrong with the system not the individual?

I know that millions of people die every year, countless people die everyday, but how many great people need to die for us to recognize that there is a problem?

Three undergrad students at UPenn have died since winter break. At least one of those is due to suicide and this is not the first UPenn undergrad to commit suicide.

When are we going to realize that we have to put health before the student body's education?

Let's stand up now and try to make a change, let's recognize that there is a problem, awareness is the first step and action is the second step, now that we are more than aware that there are problems on college campuses, specifically Ivy League campuses, specifically Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell and University of Pennsylvania. With all of these problems, it makes it difficult to hurrah for the red and the blue. It makes it very difficult for me to proudly say that I am a Penn graduate. One of the most upsetting things in this world is recognizing that there is a problem and doing nothing to stop it.

Let's take action and work on what we can do to prevent the next suicide.

It is too bad UPenn Administrators are unable to recognize that there is an issue and are unable to affect change on any measurable scale. It is too bad Penn Administrators are unable to recognize that 18-25 year olds are left with major mental health problems that out-dated procedure and practcies are not going to fix. No amount of money, or part of the budget is going to fix the problem.

We need the right people in the right places at the right time. We need people who care, people who truly care. We need health care professionals that have some idea of the pressures of achieving at a top ranked school such as University of Pennsylvania. We need the entire staff to understand that mental health is not something to be stigmatized, and stereotyped. Depression is a real illness and those with depression need real help from people who understand mental health and mood disorders.

Suicide is never the answer. Medicine is only part of the solution, but talk therapy and the proper facilities and proper people must be in place to properly combat depression and other mood disorders.

Let's make a change, let's start today, let's stop blaming the victim and let's realize:
Change is Possible.

Let's wake up, and recognize that suicidal ideations are a part of life and let's stop living in denial and let's take action today. Let's work on prevention, let's work on saving people's lives as opposed to perpetuating the same old plan, keeping the same bureaucracy in place, that follows the same protocol that we've been using since the revolution or since the 1800s or since world war II or since the DSM-II. Let's start making some changes.

This is the 21st century and nearly every single person in America has faced symptoms of depression or at some point in their life will.

Maybe, we have to live rationally and not by the University Rule Book.

Let's wake up, let's start making some changes today.

Let's recognize that the future, the smartest individual in the country tomorrow is some kid struggling on a college campus right now.

Some kid that is contemplating whether or not living his life is worth living is going to change the world one day. You know "kids these days".. While some of us have various priorities, many of us are trying to make the world a better place, and most of are just hoping for a better tomorrow. We can make the world a better place, together.

Let's do what we can now to stop the next student from committing suicide tomorrow or later today. We all know that we have to stop problems upstream, so let's work on rational intervention and prevention. Let's make a plan.

Step One - Let's recognize that Health and more specifically mental health is the most important aspect of a student's life and education. For all the staff that are not capable of understanding the importance of mental health they should take sensitivity training.

For now let's just work on step one.

Let's place Health before Education. Let's start changing the way we think - so we can change the way we act - so we can work towards saving someone's life.

Let's stop blaming the victim and let's start creating rational plans for prevention.

Let's start right now. Let's try to understand that if our mental health is not intact then students will not be mentally prepared to learn.

Let's learn to put health first. Let's learn together as one community made up of many individuals. Let's recognize that some of the individuals who make up this community are suffering from mental health issues. Let's remember that a team is only as stong as it's weakest link, so let's drop our egos and let's live for a better tomorrow, let's make this the last student to commit suicide due to the pressures of being a high achiever and perfectionist at University of Pennsylvania.

Let's learn to change as individuals, but let's do it together as one strong Penn Community.

Let's proudly say Hurrah for the Red and Blue!

Let's evolve. Let's change. Let's adapt with the times. Let's allow recent alumni to proudly say they are Penn graduates as many great individuals have said in the past.

Let's learn from the past so we can take steps towards a more understanding and brighter future.

Penn Alum
SEAS 2012

Know When It's Enough for Now

Take care of what needs to be done

Stay in shape
Be active

S  T  R  E  T  C  H

Stay healthy

Cleanliness is next to godliness

Try new things
Learn

Listen and play music

Read and write

Feel productive
Be productive

Make plans

Be nice

Sleep
Drink water
Eat and make food

Have fun
Think but not too much

Stay balanced

Enjoy

Do what you gotta do but know when it's enough for now

What? I want

What? I want

New note
New idea

Is that what I want
Is what? What I want

I think
If I think
And write down what I'm thinking
It'll make me feel as if my feelings are being expressed
Being felt

But what goes through my mind
Mostly nonsense
Nonsensical things
You can say a lot and not say much
You can say
How your day was and about this person you met
Complain about this
Until you go insane
But maybe it keeps you sane to talk about the inane because what really matters in the grand scheme of all this
You live and you die in the blink of an eye
Just a fleeting moment that means so much in the moment
Get a job and grow old
Hope you can tell people what you wanted to be told

Or maybe that's what some need
Feel a struggle or frustration
To share
So you can bond
Even if it's based on negativity or naïveté

once...

once you stop caring what other people think more than yourself, 
and you've hit rock bottom, 
it is so freeing, 
you are free to do as you please, 

so don't be afraid to hit rock bottom, 
don't be afraid to ask for help, 
because if i never asked anyone for help, 
i wouldn't be where i am today, 

if i never asked for help, 
i wouldn't be alive 

you don't have to trust anybody, 
but you have to trust yourself, 

you don't have to love anybody, 
except you have to love yourself, 

you don't have to fear any one, 
but be honest with yourself and figure out what you fear, 
because if you don't it will eat you alive, 

and if you can't sleep, 
you'll still have dreams, 
and if you can't dream, 
then you won't be able to live, 
and if you're not living, 
then you might as well.. 

not give a fuck, 
so just love yourself, 
respect yourself, 
respect women, 
respect your parents, 

but listen to your heart, 
listen to the voices inside of your head, 
you don't have to seek violence, 
you don't have to seek anything, 

just listen to the dreams inside your head, 
because they'll only be there till you're dead, so dream little darling, dream

Everybody Smiles in Photographs

And if we judged the world on FB and Instagram

I guess the world would be a happy place

And if we judge the world on FOX news and the New York Times

I guess the world wouldn't be so great, a disgrace

And if we judged the world on photographs

Everybody is smiling

And if we judge the world on the holocaust

Everybody is dying

And if we judged the world on Twitter and TMZ

Everybody is f*cking crazy

And if we judged the world and 

we just looked at you and me

I guess the world is crazy

And if we judged the world by looking in the mirror

I guess we wouldn't be able to take the sadness

And if we judged the world on Harvard and Penn

Everybody is using drugs, and 

just putting too much pressure on themselves

And if we judged the world by you and me

I guess the world is irrational

And if we judged the world by alcoholics and potheads
I guess everybody just indulges

And if we judged the world on Einstein and Schrodinger

I guess the world doesn't even exist

And if we judged the world just looking at the roses

Then everything would be fine and dandy

And if we judged the world on all the strangers

I guess we'd smile and take their candy

And if we judged the world on all the homeless people

I guess we'd cry ourselves to sleep

And if we judged the world on all the soldiers
I guess we'd think most people have discipline

And if we judge the world on Rock and Roll
I guess we'd think everybody takes everything for granted

But if we just stopped judging the world

and looked at ourselves in the mirror

and we looked into the eyes of our children

and we believed the world can be a better place tomorrow.

If we just believed

If we had faith in our fellow man

but no, we judge the world based off of MTV, 

the real world, road rules, rappers, athletes

we're just so busy judging

so busy placing blame

too bad lady liberty is blind

I guess i'm so f*cked up that I forgot

or too young to realize

cause if we just looked at all the parties and 

all the balloons and all the people

what would we even see

if we just looked at ourselves in the mirror

and stopped acting as if

would we realize

that the biggest joke

the biggest joke is on me

if we just stopped for a second

and we closed our eyes

and we tried to comprehend

could we?

we couldn't

we can never understand

the horror

the tragedy

the sadness

the holocausts that take place everyday

but what do i know

you're busy judging me

and I'm busy putting too much pressure on myself

just putting too much pressure on themselves

right because that's what we like to

just put all this pressure on ourselves

like diamonds

but we're like diamonds in the sky

but what do i know

you're busy judging me

and i'm busy trying to change the world

when i should just be worrying about myself

who knows

maybe god knows

maybe god can tell me why

maybe one day he'll tell me why

but one day i'll be gone

one day you'll be gone

but the world

well who knows

maybe the world will still be turning

maybe the music will still be playing

who knows

i asked an angel in my dream

and she just stared back at me

poof 

she's gone

i guess it's like that

nobody will ever understand

life is what you make of it

life is what you choose to be

life is whatever you want it to be

if you want life to be a bitch

then get high everyday

pretend like Jesus did it

who cares

but if you want to make the most of it

or you want to make the worst of it

it doesn't matter to me

or so I say

i like to think

it should only matter to you

and nobody will ever understand me

but i never told you to understand

i just want you to realize that 

everybody smiles in pictures

so don't judge the world by 

facebook and instagram

twitter and tweets

judge the world by the scars and the regrets

the scars and the regrets

because life is one big mistake

well not really but...

so make the most of it while you're still here

imagine a world with no mirrors

imagine a world with no photographs

would you like the reflection staring back at you?

would you like it

would you love it

would you put no one above you

i stopped asking the world for love

because its a cold world

with cold wars

world war 1, world war 2

1,2,3

revolutions everyday

but we just keep on keeping on

we just perpetuate the past

perpetuate the future

pretend like life's a present

preparing for the future

picking meticulously

trying to pick out the patterns

that have some meaning

that have something in them

all these objects that surround

all these places that i go

all these people that i see

it's not even people

it's just faces

it's just eyes

just eyes

staring back at me

rarely

just eyes

rolling away

rolling in the distance

rolling in the deep

rolling eyes

wasting my time

but time you enjoy wasting

well that's not wasted time

right

they say you gotta know when to hold em

you gotta know when to fold em

you gotta know when to take them for a ride

but what kind of ride is this

a drive by

the way i live my life

one moment at a time

one second

one instant

life's not filled with a book of faces

and instagrams

instantaneous reactions

instantaneous solutions

in an instant we expect the world

in a 140 characters we expect

tweets and twitters

something truly profound

but the world is round

and i lost touch right?

i'm floating somewhere off the ground

but i feel so grounded

like a circuit

like a system

like something you would never understand

life is filled with sadness

life is filled with pain

life is filled with the bitter

so you can understand the better

Cause if we judged the world on Facebook and Instagram

I guess the world would be a happy place

but the world isn't a happy place

blind optimism can only take you so far

in the world of the blind

we think the one eyed man is king

nah it's worse than that

cause in my world

the world is blind

and the blind man is king

oh man 

i stopped living life

looking for jewels and royals

cause im not impressed

i get upset

not depressed

as i watch the world rewind and regress

but i digress as i often do

because if we judged the world on facebook and instagram

then the world wouldn't make much sense

because everybody smiles in photos and photographs

but the world is so complex

it's so much more than graphics on a screen

so much more than windows and lions and linux

the world is so complex

but we think it's so simple

and its a complex problem trying to simplify things 

no matter if they are simple or complex

but i digress as i often do

cause if we judged the world on facebook and instagram

well you know everybody smiles in photos and photographs

Music Is / Music Isn't

Music isn't about being new, flashy, or me or my ego, music is about the test of time, music is about being transcendent, it's not about what's hot right now, it's about forever, music lives on longer than any individual, music is art, art is music, art imitates reality, reality imitates art, welcome...

Can You?

i used to not believe, but now i believe i believe words have power i believe music holds power i believe our bodies hold power i believe our brains hold power beyond any measure in the universei believe that humans have powerbefore you change the world you have to change yourselfand i believe i can changecan you?

I'll Pray for You

I'll pray to a God that I barely believe in
because I'm happy that I'm barely breathing

When I got time she got freedom
When a heart breaks
No, it don't break even

Odds or evens
I live my life flipping quarters
To keep my sanity
everyday is a bet
and I bet on my sanity

Heads or tails
it doesn't matter anymore
cause you flip the coin
and once it's in the air
you'll know what you want

I want love
I want life
I want freedom
I don't want anything
I need
I feed off of the love
I feed off of the positive energy

yet there are so many haters trying to bring me back down to reality
oops there goes gravity

ain't no one gonna break my stride
pride is the sign of a foolish man
so who the f, you think you're talking to

i'm right here in the flesh i'm right in front of you
i love it when you haters be laughing saying my name
it seems like your mouth is not connected to your brain
you think you're hot shit but you just got diarhea of the mouth
and i stopped caring about tommy aches in 8th grade
cause I still don't give a fuck

i got time
she got freedom
i pray to a god that i barely believe in
when a heart breaks
no, it don't break even

and what am i supposed to
like i care about myself
me in this place
i put my ego on the shelf
and i walk the streets
and ppl ask me how i get my head in the door
and i respond that i'm a amirror of you
i guess you don't like your reflection today
but you gotta loook yourself in the mirror everday
in this place, look into your eyes and you'll see your soul
do you like hat you see

close your eyes
let freedom take over
let boredom kick in
but substitute boredom with serenity

and do a serenity prayer for yourself
cause nobody else cares
cause we all die one day
and you'lll end up alone
and it doesn't matter to me
cause as long as my heart's still beating
i'll never forget that when a heart breaks
it don't break even.

The Man

The man
The myth
The legend

The poet
The painter
The man
The artist

I'd rather be a tornado or a volcano then be a dormant mountain
waiting for my next avalanche

I'd rather be in control
than be a wrecking ball with only destruction

to be the best
you have to beat the best

we are the champions
but there's no competition

Instead I'll be a crane
Instead I'll be a fire lilly that grows even after the fire
I'll be the flower that grows through the concrete
I'll be the lotus that grows through the destruction
and I will create

my weakness is that i care too much
and the scars remind us that the past is real
i tear my heart open just to feel
i tear myself open just to feel
and i'm drowning
so i breath and remember
who i am

i am

The poet
The painter
The man
The artist

I will.

Let Go

I will learn to let go
I will learn to live free
I know who I am
I know who I'll be

"Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind."

I choose to live
I chose to live
I choose to love
I chose to love
I choose to know thyself
Know thyself
in this place, read me, read my face

I will learn to love again.

What you are just learning
I already forgot long ago

Self Defense
so I don't even get hung up on the fence
D-Fense
D-Nile
Denial is the first step
then comes anger
soon after comes acceptance

Keep it simple Stupid
Verbal warfare
Art of War
MMA
Krav Ma Ga
Oh my god, who gives a shit

you gotta protect yourself
before you wreck yourself

KISS
Keep it simple
Keep it simple, Stupid
what you are just learning
I have long forgotten

I can't even remember how the saying goes
eat up
hope
live
let go
and love
let go
and live