It seems that we can’t do enough these days to always fully realize those that are close to us. Things change and we don’t get to do all the things we want to or say what we can. 7 years ago I lost my best friend to an automobile accident. I had never thought I would be a pallbearer so early in my life.
I could go on and say a lot about Joe, but I feel it’s more suited for him to talk about himself in the bit of writing I still have copied away from his. I had saved these on a web page seven years ago and they had managed to survive. I figured now is the time to make sure they stay saved and not lost into Internet oblivion.
The original site is here
The following contains pieces I wrote or Joe wrote (he is in Bold) all those years ago:
A Tribute To Joe Cyrek
5-14-81 – 6-1-00
Screw The Beer We Have Everclear
Joe was a good friend, a little brother, a loving son, and a gifted writer and an artist. He was someone I could call on if I needed a hand, as he was to most people. These pages are designed for you, the readers, to share memories of him. If anyone has any thoughts and stories they would like to share I will post them under the memories section. For us that are still in mourning and still will be somewhat for the rest of our lives remember what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger………sometimes though I wish I was a little weak.
For everyone on me about getting this done, I hope you understand that dealing with and getting through this is one of the most painful things I have done in my life. I haven’t got my tattoo yet, but I will…that happens to be more of a money issue than anything else. I hope other people contribute pictures and memories of Joe otherwise this website will continue to stay very small.
Sincerely
Brent M. Gueth
Joe was not just a poet he was an avid writer of any kind. He was supposed to be my Gothic-style web page designer. He just wanted to write, he had a dream of going to college and becoming a reporter or freelance writer. Please take the time to read his writing and appreciate his unique style. The first is an intro to Joe’s Alter-Ego Damien PuckDraven Darkling.
Well the best way to begin is to introduce myself. I am…
Damian PuckDraven Darkling.
I am a rare breed. I am a mortal vampire along with darkling decent.
I am just of the young age of sixteen, yet I have seen much of this cruel world and have been through hell and back. Yet I do not regret a moment of it. As a matter of fact I rather think I enjoyed my life thus far, always wondering what tomorrow had in store for me. I love life on the edge of insanity. I have only recently come to understand my type of life I am living. It is not as dark and gloomy as the fictional books and movies make it seem to be. It is rather much more clear, yes much more clear through my eyes. It just changes your whole view of life, it just makes every small thing hold some form of interest, no matter how small and trivial it may be. It sill some how holds a wide spectrum of interest. Now I must get back to the subject at hand to tell a so called chapter of my life.
It all started upon the godforsaken night of October 31st. I was in the company of three friends, and for personal reasons, some will be given false names. The two females were Kat and Selissa, and then there was Sam, Selissa’s boyfriend at the time. Me and my Kat were also together at the time, soul mates. Yet in secret my once beloved friend selissa had other plans for me…she wanted me for her own. As for me, some strange reason my insides screamed no, not to get involved with her. Yet she did successfully tear me and my beloved Kat apart. Until this day I don’t know why I allowed this to happen. So it was a lovely night and we were out terrorizing the town, even though my town is nothing more than a speck on the planet, we still had our times. The normal scaring of the neighborhood children to death, out thrill to watch them cry.
Oh how I miss those days, running with the darkness, it was the best time of my life, no our lives… So now back to the task at hand, we are all now separated and relatively hate one another. The sad part is that Selissa did this to benefit herself, and she lost also. Yet what she did not account for is that I am not a normal person to be messed with and my and my Kat still love one another as the best of friends. Now has come a time to teach a long overdue lesson to Selissa and the other one who tried to harm me, Evelen. Evelen tried to get into my mind and then got it will to her dismay it did not work, yet she will pay. They both shall pay for their sins of corruption, deceit, and inflicted pain. Now comes the time for me and my Kat to have our revenge, and oh how chaotic is shall be. I want to reek such a havoc upon them, yet you must understand that there is a million things worse than death, and I know them all.
I now will let you have a slight glimpse into my mind. I am one of a dark souled decent, yet not so dark that I can’t see the light of reality. I enjoy the stranger side of life, well not only because of the fact I drink blood, but also with that aside, I am still different from the rest of humanity. I was born to be this and am glad to try and fit the shoes of the olden times Darkling lifestyles and beliefs. I am a kind of Darkling that enjoys pain, and knows the best ways to inflict it upon others. Yet I will not harm you unless you try to harm me first. After you try that, you are fair game to me and all my insanity. “I think the splash of blood is divine, and if you are my enemy I shall drink your blood like wine.” This I strongly believe in, so don’t test it unless you do not value your life.
Here are a few of Joe’s poems:
A CANDLE BURNS AT BOTH ENDS AND WILL NOT LAST THE NIGHT. BUT ALL MY FRIENDS AND ALL MY FOES, IT DESCENDS A LOVELY LIGHT. UPON THE HOUR OF TWILIGHT’S EVE I SHALL STILL HAVE ONE ACE HIDDEN UP MY SLEEVE. AS A DARKNESS CRAWLS ACROSS THE LAND THERE IS STILL ONE TRUE GOLDEN MOMENT OF GOLDEN BEAUTY IN THIS GODFORSAKEN MAN. NOTHING PURE IS LEFT IN THIS SOUL, SO ALL I LOVE AND ALL I HATE ARE OF NO MEANING ANY LONGER. FEELING OH SO LOST AND SO ALONE AND EVER SO NUMB. LONELY A LIFE IS IT IF YOU CAN NOT TRUST. I DO NOT AND MAY NEVER TRUST AGAIN.
BITE THE BULLET
FREAKS CREED-WE MAY BE FEW BUT WE ARE STRONGER THAN ALL.
WE MAY TAKE ON THE WORLD AND WE WILL FALL FROM GRACE,
BUT WE WILL TAKE THIS WORLD WITH US A WORLD ENGULFED IN FLAMES.
YES WE MAY FALL TO THE BOTTOM BUT THAT IS WHERE WE THRIVE
THE WORLD WILL COME WITH US AND IN OUR LOSS THE OTHERS WILL GAIN
NOTHING BUT RECYCLED PAIN. AGONY IS SUCH A STRENGTH TO THE ESTRANGED.
TO THRIVE HERE IS TO SIMPLY SURVIVE
TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE YOU ARE HATED FOR WHAT YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN,
IT IS SAD.
ONE DAY WE WILL THRIVE AND CONTROL THIS WORLD.
THEN IT WILL BE FREE TO BE WHO YOU ARE.
MaLkAvAiN
MaDnEsS
WeLl Im MuSt SaY We ArE NoT DoInG TO InSaNE LaTlEy. As A MaTtEr Of FaCt LaTeLy YoU AlL HaVe BeEN RaThEr SaNe AnD IM SiCkENd By This So I ImPlOrE YoU To JoiN Me In My MALKAVIAN OnSlaUgHt We MuSt OrGaNiZe AnD Be A cLan AgAiN JoiN Me AnD ReMemBer YoUr INSANITY OR FORGET It I ThiNk . WeLL I LiKe JElLyBeaNS AnD SMall KitteNNS IN SoUP AND MiNiTuRe HorsES NamEd WiLd BiLl MaKe NoT SeNSe. HAvE YoU DrIvEn A HeBrEW LaTlEy?????
WeLl GooD ByE I MuSt Say Or Is IT No MoRe NoDDlEs In A CaN Of SpOOnS I CaNt RemEMbER AbOut ChiKeNs In SmaLL ShoEs .
LoVer
DiaB NiTtreL AnD HiS LeaChEs Of My BiG ToE
Shattered
Madness and confusion tears and pulls at my soul
Now my final stand broken I have no one to whom I can consul
My insane love has taken a heavy toll
Too heavy for me to be able to control
And now my heart lay still upon my window sill, black as coal
I am still falling through my collapsed dream
And pain, despair, sorrow, and confusion flow through my heart like a stream
The only thing heard is my dead soul’s silent scream
Then in a flash of moonlight, you can see my soul on its knees in the black light
Then out the twilight, demons take flight
And the devil lays claim to my fallen soul
Whom no person, not even I myself could control
Now my black heart remain still as it under the will of an unforeseen soul
My soul can now only pray for rain to wash away its pain and for this it has no more then enough lonely time to kill
Here hours seem like days, while your soul spins around in a haze
You search for one thing to stand true, yet your last in your own mind’s haze.
Torn
Feeling oh so lost and alone, can’t help the one I love so dear. I cannot go home ’cause I must keep near. My soul feeling abandoned and mistreated. My heart is utterly defeated. Yet the hope holds true, oh so true. For the light inside still burns bright and my dearest of friends will not give up the fight. Yet to see one so strong, in such a weak state, it burns my soul in two. I’m barely able to keep control, doing this on my own. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. Being so strong for everyone else’s sake, yet wanting to break down and fall apart.
Below is what I wrote about Joe all those years ago
My Personal Memories Of Joe
By
I first met Joe at the Haunted Schoolhouse in the 1996 season, one of the best seasons as far as I am concerned. I was working graveyard in my usual fashion (a story for another time) getting a ton of scares, and in comes, this idiot acting like he runs the place telling me that I am doing it all wrong, and this was a kid over 5 years younger than me. He told me his name was Joe Cyrek and he was surprised that I never heard of him (like most of the egos of the schoolhouse work). He started banging a shovel across the entranceway to the graveyard crawling up the walls and hanging upside down from the garage door. I told him he was crazy and I would continue doing things my own way, he shrugged his shoulders and wandered off to cause mischief somewhere else in the maze and to hopefully pester someone else. After my accident in the schoolhouse (it goes along with that story for another time) I will say Joe’s way definitely influenced my method of working the room. I was the idiot banging the shovel against the entranceway, crawling up the walls, and hanging from the garage door. Not to let Joe’s ego get too big, he was not the sole influence for this behavior, but he did give me a second perspective on how to work the room.
For the next couple years, I did not have much contact with him, seeing I was semi-retired from the Schoolhouse. I ran into him here and there at the Moore residence and he always said hi. I said hi back, but I told my then Fiancée to ignore him and maybe he’ll go away. He kept trying to talk to us and when we left we would turn to one another and go is he your friend? I don’t talk to him so he’s not my friend.
In the 1999 Schoolhouse year, a group of us were talking about role-playing dungeons and dragons at the end of the night. Well, this guy (Joe) asked if he could come over and game with us. I told him that I didn’t’’ care, the more the merrier. He asked if he could crash over at my place, I cleared it with Autumn, seeing I didn’t want her to have to wake up with a stranger, or strange person for that matter in the house. Well, he came over and created an elven thief character, Damien PuckDraven Darkling, with a double long sword – think Darth Maul with swords instead of the light saber.
He was really excited about getting to airbrush the sign of the schoolhouse. It was almost like his coming of age at the schoolhouse. He was one of my guides. Every night he wanted to bet that he would not get the first fiend award, we had to keep telling him that the award was for the younger generation and he missed his chance once upon a time. He had a real fetish for glow in dark makeup and loved roaming/ working the ramp.
At the end of every schoolhouse night, Joe came and stayed over and usually we gamed I think he missed one night of gaming the whole season. He became a constant fixture on my couch. Sometimes he stayed days on end always the thoughtful son checking in with his mother. We did a lot of things together but all in all not that much. We gamed went out about town which we all know is not much played video games, role-played, and went to borders, then around the beginning of December Joe disappeared for about a month. There was an altercation with another one of our friends who will remain nameless. Then around January, he started showing back up again. Autumn and he started competing in Final Fantasy 8. The whole problem I had with that is when one of them found something the other had missed they restarted the game all over again, and it is a long ass game. We all saw Dogma together and I managed to get Joe on the boat that was Kevin Smith is the greatest thing ever.
Around February we started going to the Flying Saucer Coffee Shop which many of you know was a big part of Joe’s life, he always talked about how cool it would be to work there. We usually spent at least every Saturday they and a day or two during the week. His favorite beverage was a 25 oz. Brian’s Comet. One time Sean bet him a free Brian’s Comet if Joe could drink the full 25 oz. one in less than 20 seconds. Joe did it in 17 seconds. He always said he was going to work to get it down to less than ten. He said the answer was a larger straw.
Joe always told big stories wanting you to think he was larger than life. In some ways he was, in other ways, he seemed to feel inadequate.
He never wanted his family to know he smoked so he would always send me to Speedway to buy his Marlboros from his grandmother Sandy.
Then there was Marcon, the one thing that we had talked Joe into (not much talking required), that we actually followed through on. I was in a separate car from the one Joe, Autumn, and Jonathan took down to Columbus. I rode with Griffaw on the ride down. We left roughly 3 hours after they supposedly left. When we reached Ashland I got a call on my cell phone, from Joe, that they needed the directions again because they forgot to copy them down. They were only 45 minutes ahead of us on I-71.
Looking back Joe and I never did a lot but we did things he loved, go to the coffee shop, role-played, and watched Kevin Smith movies, we didn’t have to always go out and be off the wall. I really enjoyed just hanging out with him. He was one of my best friends.
That is all I have – I wish there were more but there are memories – more memories than I can ever write up that is precious to me. Joe left us before the days of myspace memorials and I don’t plan of doing anything like that. This post is enough – my affirmation that he is alive in my heart and thinking about him can still make my eyes water. I have a picture (the one my sister used on her page) up in a spot I can see every day in my house. Joe I feel is the guardian angel that sits over my shoulder and keeps me from truly growing up – I still hope one day even after all these years I will wake up and find out it was all a dream.
I still haven’t got that tattoo I promised – but I will – I promise that I will.
