Swings of Passivity.

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Swings of Passivity.

Ulises Vargas 

November 15, 2025. 


It feels like I constantly need a break 

Or some sort of instant relief 

From the stress of the world and I 


Life goes on, from temporary cure-to-futile escape,

Which, without them, would leave me suffering 

With no window into a world free of woes 


A drink on the weekends, 

Undoes the winding which the week brings

Should I miss the chance to unwind, 

Then no peace of tomorrow may be guaranteed 


Even a droning white noise, 

Or the most settling sunset, 

Or the soft breeze of winds licking me, 

Could calm me so deeply 

In void of any chemical relief 


Quite the social butterfly, 

I stay silent and stare down 

If my system is unimpaired 

By some chemically-induced serenity 


It seems that the only party I can bring

Is the reluctant trudge of showing up;

Going through the motions 


A great day

Is one full of empty pleasures

Such that, the next day, a renewed battery drives me 


Routine robs me of all wonder and excitement,

So I find it in the disillusionment of derealizing things 


The weekend drinks dissolve the usual, timid self 

Enough to embolden me to live on with mediocrity 

Going through the motions, I am not the same person 

As the relaxed, happy, and outgoing figment 

Spawned out of wreckless and vane pursuits


As a static laborer of routine, 

I am misrepresented as lacking ambition and fervor

As the intoxicated, careless, and impulsive, 

I am misrepresented as being fun and happy 

Neither is true 

Neither lasts forever 

Neither makes me fulfilled 

Neither will make it all worth it, in the end 


I can’t love either person

No one should love only one of me, 

Or face grim disappointment 


A star in a cubicle;

A bed-ridden life of the party 


Top Poems of the Year.

No Good For Me.

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                                                                     No Good For Me.   Ulises Vargas January 25, 2025. You’re no good for me.  I hooded my eyes, blind to the dark flood of negativity.  Your love was my burden to bear.  I never meant to hurt you, not at all.  But I couldn’t stand the abuse and stand tall.  Selfishly, you dragged me down with you.  While I tried my best to fix you.  Now, I’m deleting all the pics of us.  Memories torture me beyond dusk. All we had was lust.  A betrayal to what could’ve been.  I thought you were my life and I was yours,  But it was just the sex.  Now I’m free, and I don’t know how to be.  Or who I am or who I used to be.  You defined me, rewrote my own story.  So don’t contact me, rath...
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Frosted Cocaine.

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                                                                    Frosted Cocaine. Ulises Vargas January 2, 2024.  Cocaine, take away the pain.  Feel that icy blizzard like hard rain.  Pick me up from sadness and take me away.  I have nothing to gain but happiness,  Everything to lose and descend into madness.  But today, take the pain away.  Numb my face like a glass mask.  Use your power to cover and glaze the past.  Give me life, for every dollar I spend.  Give me life, for every wound you mend.  Save me from insanity,  And bring me to serenity.  Finding peace, piece by piece.
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One hundred selves.

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One hundred selves.  Ulises Vargas  November 29, 2025.  Liars. All of us are liars.  Don’t try to lie and say that you’re not a liar, either.  Let me ask you: does everyone in your life know the same stories as each other? Do they all know the same person, or have you shaped their perspective of you?  Does your mother know the travesties you’ve committed?  Does your lover know your daydreams and fantasies?  Do your colleagues know how you party?  No–no to all of those questions.  Yet, each one of them supposedly knows you.  Each one of them is wrong,  because you lie to each one of them.  They all think that they have you solved; they all think that they know the real you.  To one hundred people,  there are one hundred versions of yourself.  Are any of them real? Is it really the same person who makes those one hundred selves,  or is each self a whole different person?  Regardless, how, then, can o...
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