Don't pretend you ever forget about me. I know better than to believe it, and while you're good at lying to yourself, you're not that good.
Don't pretend you ever forget about me, but don't delude yourself about the reasons I'm unforgettable, either. Exaggeration doesn't do us any favors.
Actually, cut all the bullshit. Quit pretending, and just let it be what it is: two people tangled up in each other, inexplicably inextricably, half-hating it, but unable to get enough of the experience.
Don't pretend you love me, but don't you dare pretend you ever forget about me. I will keep you honest, and I will call you on it.
7/30/11
7/29/11
Weightless
I felt as though my heart would break, it was so swollen with joy.
"What was that laugh for?" he asked, gazing at me curiously.
"Sheer delight," I replied.
There is nothing quite like the weightless exhilaration of flight.
As long as I have myself, I can do anything, even have my heart shatter into a whole or reach out to caress a star.
"What was that laugh for?" he asked, gazing at me curiously.
"Sheer delight," I replied.
There is nothing quite like the weightless exhilaration of flight.
As long as I have myself, I can do anything, even have my heart shatter into a whole or reach out to caress a star.
7/28/11
A Drum Set
A drum set and a cymbal fall off a cliff, a cosmic joke. But what happens if only the drum set falls? Does that make it funnier? Or simply less cosmic?
What sound does a falling drum set make?
I am sore with stress, and you will never cease it.
The drum set can never push the cymbal off the cliff. It simply doesn't work that way. The universe thinks it better that the cymbal not fall - funnier because the punch line doesn't come after all.
It's amusing to leave the drum set hanging in the terrifyingly exhilarating suspension called free fall.
(Ba-BOOM....)
What sound does a falling drum set make?
I am sore with stress, and you will never cease it.
The drum set can never push the cymbal off the cliff. It simply doesn't work that way. The universe thinks it better that the cymbal not fall - funnier because the punch line doesn't come after all.
It's amusing to leave the drum set hanging in the terrifyingly exhilarating suspension called free fall.
(Ba-BOOM....)
7/23/11
Ice Rink
Life is like an ice rink. Think about it. It's the same thing over and over, going around in a rough approximation of a circle. It should be boring. But it's not.
Because as much as it's the same, it's also very different. Each turn brings you something new - a different obstacle (a little kid or candy on the ice) or a different triumph (mastering cross-overs or sliding through a particularly narrow gap). An ice rink is monotonous in its overall pattern (around and around) but variable in its details. Like life.
That's not where the resemblance ends, however. You can zoom around the rink, or cautiously clutch the sides. You smile, you laugh, you fly, you fall, you crash. You hurt, you cry, you pretend it doesn't matter, and clamber to stand. Your skates are sometimes too loose, or you just can't feel your feet - but other times it's perfect and you can do anything.
There are the assholes who ignore you, or push you to the ground, and then the good Samaritans who stop to help you up. There are those who just stay out of your way, and those you feel sorry for, and want to succeed.
There's everything at an ice rink. It's just going around in circles; it should be boring. But it's not.
Because as much as it's the same, it's also very different. Each turn brings you something new - a different obstacle (a little kid or candy on the ice) or a different triumph (mastering cross-overs or sliding through a particularly narrow gap). An ice rink is monotonous in its overall pattern (around and around) but variable in its details. Like life.
That's not where the resemblance ends, however. You can zoom around the rink, or cautiously clutch the sides. You smile, you laugh, you fly, you fall, you crash. You hurt, you cry, you pretend it doesn't matter, and clamber to stand. Your skates are sometimes too loose, or you just can't feel your feet - but other times it's perfect and you can do anything.
There are the assholes who ignore you, or push you to the ground, and then the good Samaritans who stop to help you up. There are those who just stay out of your way, and those you feel sorry for, and want to succeed.
There's everything at an ice rink. It's just going around in circles; it should be boring. But it's not.
7/11/11
Nothing
I don't think I'm quite in my right mind at the moment.
That's okay. I've come to find that one must mine confusion in order to come up with clarity.
This is not beautiful. This is not poetic.
That's okay, too. Beauty and poetry are my safety nets - or maybe just the chains that hold me to the ground. And I believe now is the time for me to fly.
It's so hard to imagine open space - or even simply not being confined. (Nothing is the only thing in the universe accurately defined by what it is not.)
I've felt trapped for a long time. I'm sure there's some sort of irony in that, but there's always some sort of irony in everything. I don't know why I so frequently point it out.
I hate who I was. No, that's not true.
I hated who everyone seemed to think I was. (Quiet, strange, smart girl; wears skirts, reads books, is a bitch, possibly a lesbian.)
There was a time when I'd have given anything but myself to be thought of as someone else. What I couldn't see was that it never really mattered.
I will not try to list who I am. That would be pointless - just another way of locking on chains.
When I read back over this, I won't like it. It is not beautiful; it is not poetic.
Neither, however, is it unfettered.
If only I could bring myself to be everything - to walk away from all the things that hold me trapped. I'd leave behind my past, all the people I once thought I knew, and all the expectations and limitations, drop them in the places I'd long decided would have no meaning to me later, and let them spiral on - without me.
But then who would I be?
(Nothing is the only thing in the universe accurately defined by what it is not.)
I'm vacillating between past, present, and future, knowing that the last is the only thing I can really change.
I don't want to revisit my past. I already told you that I hated who everyone seemed to think I was.
I laugh, because this piece seems to be about a question I refuse to answer, and nothing is the only thing in the universe accurately defined by what it is not.
Nothing, everything.... I'm beginning to suspect that they are the same.
And that all that makes me - makes us - is a trap.
This is not beautiful. This is not poetic.
This is everything.
(This is nothing.)
That's okay. I've come to find that one must mine confusion in order to come up with clarity.
This is not beautiful. This is not poetic.
That's okay, too. Beauty and poetry are my safety nets - or maybe just the chains that hold me to the ground. And I believe now is the time for me to fly.
It's so hard to imagine open space - or even simply not being confined. (Nothing is the only thing in the universe accurately defined by what it is not.)
I've felt trapped for a long time. I'm sure there's some sort of irony in that, but there's always some sort of irony in everything. I don't know why I so frequently point it out.
I hate who I was. No, that's not true.
I hated who everyone seemed to think I was. (Quiet, strange, smart girl; wears skirts, reads books, is a bitch, possibly a lesbian.)
There was a time when I'd have given anything but myself to be thought of as someone else. What I couldn't see was that it never really mattered.
I will not try to list who I am. That would be pointless - just another way of locking on chains.
When I read back over this, I won't like it. It is not beautiful; it is not poetic.
Neither, however, is it unfettered.
If only I could bring myself to be everything - to walk away from all the things that hold me trapped. I'd leave behind my past, all the people I once thought I knew, and all the expectations and limitations, drop them in the places I'd long decided would have no meaning to me later, and let them spiral on - without me.
But then who would I be?
(Nothing is the only thing in the universe accurately defined by what it is not.)
I'm vacillating between past, present, and future, knowing that the last is the only thing I can really change.
I don't want to revisit my past. I already told you that I hated who everyone seemed to think I was.
I laugh, because this piece seems to be about a question I refuse to answer, and nothing is the only thing in the universe accurately defined by what it is not.
Nothing, everything.... I'm beginning to suspect that they are the same.
And that all that makes me - makes us - is a trap.
This is not beautiful. This is not poetic.
This is everything.
(This is nothing.)
7/9/11
Further Winnings
On June 24, 2011, "Parting Laments" won first place.
For someone who doesn't like to write poetry all that much, I write an awful lot of it and I write it rather well. If you really want to read more of said poetry, it can be found at my All Poetry page.
BTW, Keayva Mitchell's "Push," the second place that week, is a remarkable short fiction vignette. It is, as Steward House points out, a "lyrical" snapshot that entices the reader to fill in the backstory. In short, a piece after my own heart.
What are you still reading this blog post for? Go read those pieces!
XD
For someone who doesn't like to write poetry all that much, I write an awful lot of it and I write it rather well. If you really want to read more of said poetry, it can be found at my All Poetry page.
BTW, Keayva Mitchell's "Push," the second place that week, is a remarkable short fiction vignette. It is, as Steward House points out, a "lyrical" snapshot that entices the reader to fill in the backstory. In short, a piece after my own heart.
What are you still reading this blog post for? Go read those pieces!
XD
7/6/11
Darkness
I wish I knew the words to fully convey both the endless possibility and the endless futility of this world. But all I can do is saunter from room to room with a gait that challenges for promises and finds only disappointment.
Everything ends - it's dark.
But who knows what the darkness conceals?
Everything ends - it's dark.
But who knows what the darkness conceals?
7/2/11
Smile With Me
Will you smile with me, love? I'm exhausted, desperately clinging to the memory of how I feel when I'm with you and have forgotten how everything else is. It nearly escapes me when you fade behind my mental curtain.
Please, smile with me and make me recall the sound of your heartbeat and the rumble of your voice. Smile, and help me misplace that minor melody composed of everything that's wrong. (As often as I hear it, I don't particularly care for the song.)
No! I don't want to hear it anymore!
Smile, love, please, just smile. I will beg for your bliss, because that's the closest I can get to glimpsing my own. Smile for me, and I will follow you, if a bit behind. (Only the oblivious forge blindly ahead.)
But you're concealed behind the curtain now, and I can only see your shadow. I'm exhausted, deafened by that minor melody that screams how everything else is, and slowly forgetting how it feels to be with you. Even if you smiled for me, it couldn't be with me, because I wouldn't know. (I could beg and be obliged, but I will never know.)
Please, smile with me and make me recall the sound of your heartbeat and the rumble of your voice. Smile, and help me misplace that minor melody composed of everything that's wrong. (As often as I hear it, I don't particularly care for the song.)
No! I don't want to hear it anymore!
Smile, love, please, just smile. I will beg for your bliss, because that's the closest I can get to glimpsing my own. Smile for me, and I will follow you, if a bit behind. (Only the oblivious forge blindly ahead.)
But you're concealed behind the curtain now, and I can only see your shadow. I'm exhausted, deafened by that minor melody that screams how everything else is, and slowly forgetting how it feels to be with you. Even if you smiled for me, it couldn't be with me, because I wouldn't know. (I could beg and be obliged, but I will never know.)
Doll
I'm sitting like a doll on a shelf. Pretty. Still.
Alone.
And you don't spare me so much as a glance.
That's just it, isn't it?
I'm not your ideal. I never will be.
But I am so desperate for your touch, I'm willing to stay where you leave me.
Pretty. Still. Alone.
Unhappy.
Alone.
And you don't spare me so much as a glance.
That's just it, isn't it?
I'm not your ideal. I never will be.
But I am so desperate for your touch, I'm willing to stay where you leave me.
Pretty. Still. Alone.
Unhappy.
Hope and Reason
What are you waiting for?
You always do this, dearling. You note what's wrong and then get stuck in a holding pattern as you wait for those things to change, even knowing that the odds are in favor of the status quo.
What are you waiting for?
Whatever it is, it's not coming. It's not happening.
Don't waste your time. I know the "what if." It's the only thing you live for sometimes.
"What if this problem goes away?"
"What if this is not really how it's going to be?"
"What if this is the way it's supposed to be?"
Yeah, I know the "what if" alright.
The "what if" cannot be answered.
So, what are you waiting for?
(For hope to finally be born out by reason.)
You always do this, dearling. You note what's wrong and then get stuck in a holding pattern as you wait for those things to change, even knowing that the odds are in favor of the status quo.
What are you waiting for?
Whatever it is, it's not coming. It's not happening.
Don't waste your time. I know the "what if." It's the only thing you live for sometimes.
"What if this problem goes away?"
"What if this is not really how it's going to be?"
"What if this is the way it's supposed to be?"
Yeah, I know the "what if" alright.
The "what if" cannot be answered.
So, what are you waiting for?
(For hope to finally be born out by reason.)
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