Punk Rock Soap Operas

Introductions are stupid (Version 8.0)

Hello. My real name is Chris and my online handle is Crmsnmth (as if that wasn’t obvious). I’m a 20 year old male trapped in the body of a 37 year old male. I take the phrase “I don’t want to grow up” as the philosophy around the way I live. I think it’s a pretty good thought process.

My sexuality is as confusing as can be, and I’m not really sure what the hell I am. There’s too many choices. Besides, is it really your business?

I’ve worked for the past ten years in many different kitchens. For the last five years, I was the kitchen manager/lead line cook at a bowling alley (Small town) and for a year on top of that, I had a second line cook job. I was working seven days a week, and no, that didn’t bother me. I always thought of it has a good thing. I’m extremely introverted and work is the one place where I’m confident enough to push through it. I had to leave both those jobs after my house caught on fire on September 11 of 2025. Insurance found us a new place, but it’s in a new town, and as I write this I start a new line cook job in about an hour.

I live in central WI. It sucks. And what sucks even more is I’m sober. As in I don’t drink at all anymore. WI’s reputation is real, and it’s hard to be social when I feel like it. There’s no other places to hang out then shitty dive bars. And I never go, lest I be tempted. Along with being sober, I’m a forever recovering addict with ten years clean.

My brain doesn’t work right. I am medicated for my issues. It took a long time, but I’m finally on the right path to being somewhat stable.

Music is the single most important thing I have. I listen to a little bit of everything, and I’m far from genrephobic. My daily playlist grows constantly and holds everything from Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry to Iwrestledabearonce and Drugs Dragon (a Milwaukee band I think everyone should check out). My favorite band is The Descendents but my favorite songwriter/artist is Amigo The Devil. My favorite songs are polar opposites of themselves. Stand By Me by Ben E King and Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. If you have a band or song that means something to you, please for the love of all things share it with me. I’m always on the look out for new music.

I’m also a major cinephile. I have seen probably every single slasher eighties movie, and I love every single one of them. Other than horror, I love weird movies. You know what I mean. Those indie art movies. Oddly, my favorite film ever made is Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.” And no, I’m not trying to be funny. That movie is the most perfect film every and I will die on this hill.

I don't write for anyone's approval. Not even my own. I do this because it is my healthy outlet. I do it because it's an addiction that isn't actively trying to kill me. I do it for my mental health. I do it to get things off my chest and share my story in the hopes that it helps somebody out there. I do this to show that I'm reaching my hand out, and strangers or not, I'll always have an ear to listen. I know what it's like to be completely surrounded by people and yet still feel so alone. Like I said, I do not write for anyone, sometimes not even myself. But I love constructive criticism. I think it's important in getting better at this consuming hobby. But please, if you’re going to critique, have a reason other than you don’t like, or that’s now how you would write it. If that’s all you have in your arsenal, please don’t bother. If I wanted to hear an asshole, I’d fart. Since I do write so much, what kind of topics can you find here? I'm pretty predictable when it comes down to it.

So, I write about this stuff: The Girl with the Ocean Blue Eyes*, Kid*, Hazel Eyes*, My Junkie Angel*, The Girl From California*, Vex*, The Broken Mirror Girl*, Ghost*, The Dirty Blonde Boy*, The Hipster Queen*, love, lost lovers, hopelessness, isolation, solitude, drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, forgotten faces, mental illnesses, rage, hate, rejection, joy, insignificant moments, slices of life, laughter, beauty, Self and Self-reflection, self-hate, art, other writers, panic, infatuations, obsession, therapy, group homes, rehabs, jail, grace, nature, loss, hope, fear, grief, anguish, philosophy, anarchism, nihilism, religion, god, the devil, ugliness, politics, serial killers, cults, suicide, death, destruction, chaos, music, validation, closure, memory, enemies, friends, rock bottom, sex, violence, rock and roll, sin, self-exploration, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, pain, self-destruction and so much more.

My notes app is full as can be with ideas. Alot of the times, it starts with a simple line that I build around, or an idea based on an experience from my life. Some days, I won't post at all, and other days I'll slam out a crap ton. On top of the obsessive nature of writing poetry, I am also currently working on too full-length projects, September Sky and How I Spent My Summer Vacation. September Sky is being posted on Wattpad and How I Spent My Summer Vacation is the book I'm going to publish someday.

My inspirations include Trent Reznor, William S Boroughs, Danny Kiranos, Clive Barker, Brian Molko, Billy Corgan, Pat "The Bunny" Schweenis, Frank Turner, Will Alexander, Antonin Artaud, Davey Havok, Laura Jane Grace, and plenty of others.

THIS SENTENCE IS YOUR BLANKET TRIGGER WARNING. I write about being miserable a lot. I'm bound to cause some issues.

I make music too and would love for you to tell me how much I suck at it. https://www.reverbnation.com/crmsnmth I think that’s everything. Feel free to ask or message at any time. I may not answer right away, but I will get there eventually. I love to meet new people when it’s through a computer screen. People are easier when their just pixels.

They discharged me with a paper bracelet and a warning I didn't read sent me out into the parking lot that smelled like rain and antiseptic ghosts

You were idling on the curb engine running like you didn't plan to stay long

I remember thinking this is what relief should look like someone choosing to come get you

But when I opened the door you didn't smile you just glanced, quick, clinical like the doctor already gave you the diagnosis

"You okay?" you asked but it sounded like are you worth this trouble

I said yeah because that's what you say when your ribs still ache and your pride is on life support

The seatbelt cut across my chest like another reminder I was something fragile you didn't want to handle

You drove quiet hands tight on the wheel eyes fixed ahead like the road was more important than the wreck sitting beside you

I watched your reflection in the window trying to find even a flicker of the girl who used to look at me like I was something worth saving

But all I saw was disappointment settling in your jaw like it had been waiting

And somewhere between the hospital doors and the first red light I realized

You didn't come to take me home

She tripped over nothing like the air had it out for her like gravity leaned in a little closer when she walked by

Coffee cups slipped from her hands like they were trying to escape her warmth keys scattered like startled birds and door frames she knew them all by heart every edge, every bruise

She laughed it off with that crooked, apologetic smile like the world was a joke she wasn't quite in on but loved anyway

And I swear every stumble felt like music a soft percussion of almosts and oops a rhythm only she could make beautiful

Because it wasn't the falling that stayed with me it was the way she'd look up hair in her face, cheeks flushed grinning like she'd just discovered another reason to be alive

I shouted your name into empty rooms until they came back sounding like a stranger they told me you were everywhere in the light, in the breath, in the quiet but all I ever found was silence thick as a locked door

What kind of god builds a mouth and fills it with prayers just to watch them rot on the tongue?

I've seen better mercy in a bar fight more grace in a broken bottle than in the way you let things fall apart slow, deliberate like you were savoring the sound

You took her laugh like it was nothing just another loose thread to pull and left me holding a fistful of unraveling days

Don't tell me this is a lesson don't dress it up in purpose Pain isn't holy just because you refuse to answer for it

If you're there if you ever were then step out of the dark and explain yourself

Or stay hidden stay quiet stay whatever it is you've always been

Hey dad I still dial you sometimes just to hear the silence pick up

It's stupid, I know you won't answer but there's something about the ringing that feels like hope stretching its legs before reality catches up

I've got things to tell you small things, mostly like how I finally fixed that thing you said I'd figure out if I just slowed down you were right which is annoying which means it's comforting

I wish I asked you more questions when you were still made of breath and time I thought we had years stacked up like unopened mail turns out we were already reading the last letter

There are days I sound like you in the way I swear under my breath in the way I try to hide being tired like it's something to be ashamed of I catch it, sometimes and it feels like you're leaking through me in pieces I don't know how to hold

I've been angry, too at you for leaving at the world for not asking permission at myself for every time I didn't say what I should have

I don't know where to put that anger so I carry it like something fragile that might still be useful

I hope wherever you are if anywhere exists at all you know I'm trying

Trying to be better Trying to stay Trying to build something that wouldn't make you shake your head and say my full name like a warning

I miss you in ways that don't have names in ways that show up at the grocery stores and late nights and in the quiet right before sleep when everything honest comes crawling out

If there's a way to hear this through whatever distance death built between us

just know I'm still your kid

It didn't arrive like thunder no breaking sky, no warning bell just a quiet shift in the room like dust deciding where to settle

You were mid-sentence, I think laughing at something small, forgettable and I was watching your hands trace meaning through the air like they'd done a thousand times before

That's when it slipped in not loud, not urgent just a soft, undeniable truth taking a seat beside me

I remember thinking how strange it was that your voice felt like home before I ever noticed I was lost

Nothing about you changed same crooked smile same way you looked away when you thought too hard

But something in me finally caught up

And suddenly every moment before that one rearranged itself like scattered pages binding a story I hadn't realized I was writing

I didn't say anything how could I?

Love, it turns out isn't always confession sometimes it's just a realization that it's already been there longer than you're ready to admit

There are miles between us like a long, unbroken sentence no one knows how to finish

I carry your names in my pockets worn thin like old receipts proof that I once belonged somewhere warm and loud and full of laughter

Now the nights stretch out like empty highways no headlights no passing voices just the hum of my own thinking getting louder than it should

I try to remember the small things the way you said my name like it meant something the way silence never felt heavy when we shared it

Out here, silence is a weight it sits on my chest and asks me who I am when no one is around to answer

I tell myself distance is temporary that roads run both ways that someday I'll trace them back to your doors, your voices, your light

I told myself it wouldn't be tonight that I'd learned the language of restraint that my hands remembered how to stay empty

But the quiet got loud again started pressing on my ribs like it knew the code to get in

It always does

There's a moment before it happens a flicker a thin crack in the promise I made when I still believed it

I could've turned around there I know I could have That's the part that stings the most not the fall but recognizing the ledge as I stepped off it

And then it's done

No fireworks no dramatic unraveling just the dull click of something familiar sliding back into place like it never left

Relief shows up first warm, dishonest wrapping its arms around me like it's been waiting

Shame follows close behind quieter but heavier sitting beside me without saying a word

I don't look at myself I already know what I'll see someone who swore this was the last time too many times to count

but here's the truth I don't say out loud

I'm still here

Even after the slip after the lie after the breaking of something I was trying to build

I'm still here breathing through it feeling it hating it

And maybe that counts for something

Maybe tomorrow isn't ruined just harder

Maybe starting over isn't failure just the only way forward I've got left

So I sit with it the mess the ache the quiet aftermath

and whisper to myself not forgiveness not yet

just

You didn't slam the door that would've been easier something loud enough to hate

Instead, you left quietly like a habit you finally broke like my name had already lost its weight in your mouth

I watched you go the way people watch sunsets knowing damn well they can't stop it but wishing, just once the sky would stay

Your footsteps didn't echo they erased each one taking something with it the way you laughed that way you said "stay" the version of me that still believed you would

I wanted to call out but what was left to say? We'd already spent every word on smaller goodbyes practice runs we pretended weren't endings

So I stood there hands empty heart loud memorizing the shape of your leaving like it was something I'd need to survive

And maybe that's the cruelest part not that you walked away but how final it felt

Like a door closing in a house that no longer exists like a last cigarette you didn't know was the last until you were already out of smoke

and somehow that's how I knew this wasn't a fight wasn't a pause wasn't something we'd fix when the night got softer

She stood beneath a dying strobe black lace breathing with the bass a cigarette ghosting from her lips like something trying to escape her

The DJ spun graveyard hymns all synth and sorrow and she moved like she knew how every song ended

Eyes lined in midnight smudged like she'd already cried or planned to later hard to tell in that kind of light

I watched her laugh at nothing tilt her head at strangers collect glances like bruises she wouldn't bother to hide

When she danced it wasn't for the room it was like she was shaking loose everything that held her down

I thought about saying something some cheap poetry some borrowed courage but she looked like the kind of girl who already knew every line

So I stayed where the shadows felt more honest and let her remain a myth in fishnets and boots

I keep you small folded into the back pocket of my thoughts creased like a note I'd die if someone read

It's stupid, really the way your name catches in my throat like I almost said it out loud

My friends talk about love like it's something loud and reckless like slamming doors and shouting matches but mine is quieter a nervous habit a glance I pull back too fast like I touched a hot stove

I rehearse indifference the way actors rehearse dying dramatic in private convincing in public

Because what if they knew what if you knew that I've built entire conversations with you that never make it past my teeth

So I laugh when I shouldn't look away when it matters pretend you're just another person in a world already too full of them

But every now and then you look at me just long enough to ruin everything and I remember

Yesterday didn't warn me it just showed up like any other same sky, same tired sun same unfinished thoughts in my head

And somewhere in the middle of it the world slipped quiet as a pill bottle tipping over quiet as a phone that never lights up again

You weren't supposed to become a past tense not you with your crooked laugh and the way you made bad decisions feel like temporary adventures instead of permanent endings

I keep thinking about the small things like how you'd say my name like it was something worth holding onto like I was something worth sticking around for

Now the silence is loud it hums in every room sits heavy in my chest asks questions I can't answer Did you know? Could I have known?

I hate how ordinary yesterday was for everyone else how traffic still moved how people still laughed how the world didn't stop to notice it lost you

But I noticed god, I noticed

And now I'm left here trying to make sense of a sentence that shouldn't exist trying to hold onto a memory that feels like it's already slipping

If there's anything past this anything softer than what you were running from I hope you found it

And if not I'll carry a piece of you anyway in the unfinished conversation in the habits we shared in every quiet moment where your absence feels louder than your voice ever was

There was no explosion no slammed doors, no final words sharp enough to leave a mark

Just silence sitting between us like it finally had a place to stay

We both knew before we said it felt it in the way our hands didn't reach like they used to in the pauses that stretched too long to ignore

"I think we're done"

and it wasn't a question

You nodded like you'd been carrying the same sentence in your chest for weeks

Funny how love can fade without anyone to blame how something once loud can dim itself into something softer something that doesn't quite fit anymore

We didn't cry right away Just sat there two people remembering what it felt like when this was everything

Then the tears came quietly not for what we lost but for what we couldn't keep

Because we still loved each other that was the worst part still cared, still saw the good still knew all the ways we used to feel like home

But love isn't always enough to hold something together when it's already slipping

So we let go at the same time like we practiced it somehow like this ending was the only thing we ever did perfectly in sync

It came in quiet no grand confession just three blinking dots and a message that changed the temperature of the room

"I think I have a crush on you"

Like it was small like it didn't just rearrange every thought I'd been trying to ignore

My phone lit up my face in the room like a spotlight and suddenly I was aware of my own heartbeat too loud, too fast, too obvious

I read it once then again like it might disappear if I moved too quickly

All the moments before it snapped into place every glance that lingered too long every almost-touch every joke that meant more than we said out loud

And there I was typing deleting typing again trying to sound casual while my world tilted just enough to notice

Because how do you respond when something you wanted becomes real?

How do you hold it without breaking it?

So I sat there in the glow of something new realizing love doesn't always arrive with fireworks sometimes it's just a message you're scared to open and even more scared to answer

But I did

I learned how to be invisible before I learned how to read tiptoeing across floorboards like they might betray me it I weighed too much

The house was always full of noise, of silence, of something that never quite reached my name voices passed through walls but never landed on me

Dinner plates clinked distant bells a ritual I watched from the doorway counting the seconds no one noticed I wasn't sitting down

Love wasn't missing it was misplaced filed somewhere under bills or late nights or things more important than a child with a question in their throat

I grew up feeding myself on half-finished sentences and the static of closed doors learning that comfort was something you borrowed from daydreams

Even now I apologize to empty rooms for taking up space still expecting the echo to tell me I shouldn't be here

But sometimes in the quiet I used to fear I hear something softer

a voice that sounds like mine saying you were always there you just weren't seen

You came in like a late-night song blasting through blown-out speakers all sharp edges and soft hands a contradiction I never stood a chance against

We were cheap beer and bad decisions graffiti hearts on bathroom stalls your name scribbled in the margins of every thought I couldn't outrun

I swear you hit me like a chorus loud, unforgettable, a little off-key but I'd scream every word anyway just to feel something real

We don't do quiet love we do slammed doors and laughing after we do "I hate you" that really means "Don't you dare leave."

And yeah, maybe we're a trainwreck sparks flying off the tracks but if we're going down I only want your hand in mine when it happens

You make chaos feel like home like maybe broken things still shine if you hold them under the right light if you hold me the way you do

So let's stay too late, too loud, too close let the world call us a mistake I've heard worse things than loving you

You used to say my name like it belonged somewhere soft like it had a home within your mouth like every letter knew where to rest

My name sounded different back then Warmer like a hand on the back of my neck guiding me through crowded rooms like something worth turning around for

You would stretch it sometimes play with it let it linger in the air like the last note of a song neither of us wanted to end

But something shifted quiet at first like a crack in glass you pretend not to see

And now now you say it like it burns

Sharp clipped thrown, not given

My name in your voice is no longer a place to stay it's a verdict a slammed door a match struck too close to dry skin

Same syllables same shape but it lands like blame now

Like I'm something you have to spit out to get the taste of me gone

I hear it and I don't recognize myself not the person I was when you said it like love

It's strange, isn't it how a name doesn't change but everything it means can

and I keep wondering which version was real

the one you whispered like a promise