Luciano Ferrara is a senior at SUNY Albany and a member of the English Honor Society. Excelling in creative writing and fiction, Luciano is also an accomplished lyricist and songwriter. He is currently working on a fantasy novel and hopes to graduate with honors from UAlbany, and attend grad school in Boston, in an effort to become an author and an important part of the modern literary world. He is a contributing writer for the music press site The Alternative and released his fourth solo record, “The Divide“, on May 4th.
Vacation Day
It’s not running away if you have to return the next day,
But ducking out on my duties to pretend I’m okay isn’t helping my case.
Try disappearing into history, old statues wearing a new face,
Escapism disguised as a vacation day.
A second date, a bit too late.
Comparing profusion of opportunities to the motherland’s,
Cleaner institutions, better communities and circumstance,
A big apple in the creme, commingling with moonbeams,
Meeting musicians on the train and storing memories in my mind’s machines, manufacturing,
Toiling to remember different stories, something, anything
That isn’t sitting silently at home, learning to meditate.
At least, that’s my excuse. I’m actually learning how to vegetate.
A two day break, green line, green day.
American idiot, “Irish” tourist parade,
Touring the plains, forests of rain,
Fast forward, skip to breaking the chains and drowning the indifference in seasonal Shamrock Shakes.
It’s not your fault that things don’t change,
It’s your fault that you’re the same.
It’s not all fun and games, you can’t just claim you’re taking off to escape indirect pain;
That’s lame.
Can I come back better, newer, calmer;
More patient with the people that are tugging at my collar?
Will this trip teach me to stop investing all my time in anyone that says “Hello” to me while batting their eyes,
Or will I go bankrupt buying edibles and smiles,
An overdrawn account, insufficient funds, but at least somehow I’ll be high,
Whether from the influence of green flowers or the strangers that pass by.
When I return, I might have stories of foreign exploits and allegories…
Or maybe I’ll stay quiet. Internalize my experience, and express it in the laboratory.
Vacation’s over, back to work. Another short story.
Overreaction Reactor
The best board games came with no instruction.
The leaflet with the laws was always lost in all the shuffling,
So you made your own rules and proved with indirect deductions
That absolute power leads to absolute corruption.
And that’s the research I think I’ve been conducting with my spiritual reconstruction.
I’m giving away the power, overindulging in my honesty,
Spilling my guts, giving ammo to all my enemies
Leaving the words hanging, cliff notes in the grand scheme of things.
I need to regroup, and reclaim my confidence.
Two seats separating us on the same grand line,
Two words, no emphasis, but an edge like a knife.
No budding exchanges, our fruits choked by the vine, a victimless crime
So I shot blades and lasers from the corners of my eyes,
Then closed them, took a deep breath, drained the glass, sighed,
Realized I’ve just magnified a miniscule plight
And made a mountain from a molehill for the millionth night
This week and it’s weak to be so needy you speak with your pet more often than any people you meet
It’s defeat, you’re repeating the same things, tongue in cheek,
And even your subconscious is sick of hearing you seeth through your teeth,
So stand up.
Dust off the dirt once you climb to your feet
And leave, no goodbye, it’s all good, just discretely exit the scene with your hands in your jeans
Time to refresh, cross the street to replete with whiskey and pinball machines.
The next morning it all hurts, my head, my heart, mostly my head
But there’s a silver lining sewn in with liquor-soaked thread:
It’s time to start over, so at least this can be put to bed, to rest, to death, never spoken of again
And I can attempt to try meeting new people like I’d planned.
Until my phone goes off and I feel like I’m overreacting again, and man,
Let me tell you, most times
I am.
Catharsis
It just feels so long overdue
That I swallow my pride and apologise to you.
I was a reckless force with no reigns to contain my discourse,
So I lashed out, and in either confusion or doubt, I set us on a path without a scout, or a guide
Lost the direction and used selfish desires to turn the tides and convince my mind that it’s fine to give up and exponentially decline,
Because sometimes I wonder what I’d leave behind when I die;
Probably just problems that I was too scared to face alive.
Is this cathartic, or would I not know what that is even if it punched me in the gut?
Am I an artist, or is art so subjective that I’ve made it before I start?
Are we all targets, because if so, my aim is weak. When I play darts, I close my eyes because I’m not afraid to hurt what I can’t see.
That’s how I’ve felt about you and me. That’s not okay.
But I guess that has to do with how I feel about me.
I don’t think I’m that different; maybe just conscious of the faults,
But that doesn’t mean I’m “better” or that my goals are false.
I think I want to be disparate; like an other on another creative plane,
But I gotta realize that I’m just a guy with a knack for big words and that doesn’t make me more special than anyone else, just more vain.
I want to think and inspirit; let this change in my soul infuse to my vocal cords and resonate as a whole, like one soothing sonic wave that rattles you down to your bones
And makes you change how you think, but not in a way that’s like control,
More in a way that lets you see the positive things in yourself that you already know.
What I saw when I looked back was good, and I wanted to thank you for not giving up on me, even when you could.
This is not cathartic, but it just felt really good.
