Muddy Waters - Cerulean Poetry

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Mar 29, 2025

Muddy Waters

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There is no waking up,
from what I awoke to,
my past crumpled up
like aluminum foil.

You can't lose,
What you ain't never had, 
I can't be anymore,
Who I ain't never was.

The abyss finally stared back,
with the pearly, black eyes
of a ruminating horse
and I feel freed.

But I can not cry,
for what I forgot I cried for,
and I can't help me,
for all the time I needed help.

Now, it's just about having,
or being me.
A burden or a path,
the past - a bridge to nowhere.

Audio Version

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Thoughts

When this hit me, I was listening to Muddy Waters - You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had. The song is about everything he had and lost, realizing you can never own something outright as long as you can lose it. Similarly, you can not lose something you only thought you had or hoped you had.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said:

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

I was staring into the abyss for quite a while, without knowing it. I was born into it, used to it. The resistance I felt in my heart, was me fighting the abyss seeping into my eyes. It seems like the monster lost, still — it was a compass and reorientation is needed.

me as a child sitting on my grandma's kitchen table

About Nietzsche, who also said, "What does not kill you makes you stronger," it is said that he lost his mind when he saw a horse being beaten on the streets. He was filled with empathy and pain and threw himself around the horse's neck to protect it.

In his book "To Have, or to Be," Erich Fromm opens up two life paths. You can define yourself by what you have or by who you are. You can carry your past on your shoulders, or you can be who you are and move forward.

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