Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Emotional
= despicable. Sometimes I think all I want to do is indulge in my emotions. I like extreme. It lets me feel alive. But my more prudent intellect won't let me do that. I don't want to be extreme. It makes me feel a fool. I want to be fervent, focused, and fenced in. So I pour my extremes into the medium of poetry and let it fly in the terrible deluge of my emotion. This is the only indulgence I will allow, my desperate creativity. Thank God for letters to spell my character.
Hiatus
I was thinking today that maybe I should stop. I'm not really saying anything significant--what am I doing here? Possibly I'm simply mingling with the company I know here, and taking advantage of a means to keep from drifting away from everybody. In that case, I'd better stay. For one so inclined to seclusion, anything that slows her slipping is probably good. Unless y'all want me to leave...
Should I stop?
Should I stop?
Monday, June 27, 2005
Sunday, June 26, 2005
What if...?
I worry too much. Why is it that I can't breathe, I feel almost guilty-- as though I am doing something on which society should frown? I can't face anyone until I'm 'safe'--and then I can meet their eyes--all but one person's. Perhaps because my soul knows that it is guilty--that it is doing something of which it disapproves.... It wonders whether it is following this path simply because it is temporarily and comparatively easy, because it delights in the moment, the occasional peace, the haven it finds--and yet it knows that it is disinclined to permanence. It wanders lonely and often, because it is safer that way. Or so it thinks. Nothing is ever safe. This may indeed be the greater danger, wavering on the brink--and then--- No! No! Abandon it! Oblivion awaits...drown it in dreams of nothing. Don't ask anyone to save you. Don't rely on words to dispel your fears. My mind is frenetic, constantly asking "What if...?" Wait--- Today is beautiful. Today is beautiful, but it hurts. Peace, peace....speak your thoughts. Don't hold your breath. It's just for today. Yes, but that's why the guilt. Because I do fear, a little--but not as much, because I know it's just for today. Because I don't have to think beyond that. Because I don't have to dare. Because I think if I did, I wouldn't. Because of this, my soul is saddened and guilty.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
(Scarlet)
Sometimes I feel my heart to ascertain if it is there
And has not vaporized with inattention or despair
And sometimes I can feel it, and I touch it to contain
The pulsing and convulsing and the frothing, aching pain
And often, like the minister, I find my fingers pressed
To cover the iniquity burned scarlet on my breast.
Undone, undone, undone! The minister has left his knees,
The closet of his chamber dark and heavy with his pleas
And bloody with the guilt transferred from depths of burdened soul
Upon a nightly scourge, a penance never paid in full
O minister! Give me thy scourge--lest I should longer brood
On guilt without a consequence, I heal myself with blood!
So tender is the flesh that bears the beating in the dark
So frightened is the mind that it forbears to disembark
From thinking of the horror that it fears may come at last
The moment that it dares to hope the horror may have passed
Insidious inner maelstrom drinks my soul with turgid greed--
Too recent last my scourging, touch my heart and it will bleed.
Always and that is life which breaks me open to their eyes
But death in me will cancel light and close me up with lies
When daily suffocation drives my bitterness too deep
And nightly meditation has been sacrificed to sleep
Then to my saddened soul what haunting vision should appear
But this: that fear is all I love, and love is all I fear.
And has not vaporized with inattention or despair
And sometimes I can feel it, and I touch it to contain
The pulsing and convulsing and the frothing, aching pain
And often, like the minister, I find my fingers pressed
To cover the iniquity burned scarlet on my breast.
Undone, undone, undone! The minister has left his knees,
The closet of his chamber dark and heavy with his pleas
And bloody with the guilt transferred from depths of burdened soul
Upon a nightly scourge, a penance never paid in full
O minister! Give me thy scourge--lest I should longer brood
On guilt without a consequence, I heal myself with blood!
So tender is the flesh that bears the beating in the dark
So frightened is the mind that it forbears to disembark
From thinking of the horror that it fears may come at last
The moment that it dares to hope the horror may have passed
Insidious inner maelstrom drinks my soul with turgid greed--
Too recent last my scourging, touch my heart and it will bleed.
Always and that is life which breaks me open to their eyes
But death in me will cancel light and close me up with lies
When daily suffocation drives my bitterness too deep
And nightly meditation has been sacrificed to sleep
Then to my saddened soul what haunting vision should appear
But this: that fear is all I love, and love is all I fear.
But I Regress
I found today that last quarter I lost my momentum. Did I truly stop caring? My lowest grades since I have begun this journey---3.1 in Precalculus II. That was a blow, but one I'm sure I fully deserved. 3.5 in Interpersonal Communications. I have never done so badly before in a class that required composition. The problem, as always, was that it also required speech. Another blow, equally deserved. I think I was giving up again. Sometimes I wonder if I've been giving up all along. I know people who stress the importance of belief in one's future--often my future seems a mere myth. It's strangle to relate, I suppose, but it's a fact. I can't remember a time in my entire life when I truly--I mean realistically--believed that I had a future. It's always been a blurry, far-off, unattainable thing. A place I'll never reach. A home I'll never find. A confidence I'll never fully know. Hope is arbitrary, coming and going at its will. O heaven! Not here again! Why should I be too weak to fight my own despair? Why ever should I despair? Simply because nothing ever seems to change? The simple answer to that is that I don't strive to change anything. One moment while I turn viciously on this fool. THOU FOOL! How do I hate thee? One moment, let me count the ways...STOP! Slink not away from me, thou pitiful pretentious soul. No farther! No. Thou wilt hear these words.
Wherefore dost thou flee the light, thou slinking worm, thou herald of blight?
Seest thou not that hope is fair? Pursue thou hope; fly foul despair!
I think I do not understand that it is necessary to chase after hope to keep myself from falling. Do I tire so easily that hope is forever just beyond my reach? Or is it simply that I prefer to avoid hope because despair is an easier road? Easier, and far more destructive.
It is time to stop falling and walk again. Have I the strength and courage? Have I the ambition to cast off these self-dealt blows and stand once again? It's been so long...
Wherefore dost thou flee the light, thou slinking worm, thou herald of blight?
Seest thou not that hope is fair? Pursue thou hope; fly foul despair!
I think I do not understand that it is necessary to chase after hope to keep myself from falling. Do I tire so easily that hope is forever just beyond my reach? Or is it simply that I prefer to avoid hope because despair is an easier road? Easier, and far more destructive.
It is time to stop falling and walk again. Have I the strength and courage? Have I the ambition to cast off these self-dealt blows and stand once again? It's been so long...
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
War Words
To war, to war! I march upon the world
Master of nothing, directing the cast-off overflow of my soul
Forming their structure as I spit them, retch them, weep them
And almost from the womb, I thought before my death, someday--
These words will tell me who I am
To battle, blood! I fight against my flesh
That I might master it enough today to give it up tomorrow
Come slavery, servitude, obedience, welcome
The blood I carried with me from the womb is washed away
And scars fade in death and freedom
Master of nothing, directing the cast-off overflow of my soul
Forming their structure as I spit them, retch them, weep them
And almost from the womb, I thought before my death, someday--
These words will tell me who I am
To battle, blood! I fight against my flesh
That I might master it enough today to give it up tomorrow
Come slavery, servitude, obedience, welcome
The blood I carried with me from the womb is washed away
And scars fade in death and freedom
Today...
My feet don't hurt. I played badminton and croquet and got turned down for another job. Opportunity for employment. Whatever it is you call that nonsense. I just have to stop telling people I'm going back to school in September, that's all. For one reason or another, they all want people who can work full-time indefinitely---or who have more experience than I have. It's highly unfortunate for me, however...but somewhere there must be something. It is a matter of must. It will be because it must be, and there's an end to it.
So today... I'm thinking again. I'm thinking that life looks more hopeful now that the power is back on. Yesterday the world was shaken by a powerful wind, and the lights (not to mention everything else in the house not run by batteries) faded slowly out--with lots of dramatic flickering. We were told we might not have power until tonight, so my mother and two of my brothers left to take showers at the church....
Two minutes later....
The lights came on.
(grin) Life looks more hopeful today.
So today... I'm thinking again. I'm thinking that life looks more hopeful now that the power is back on. Yesterday the world was shaken by a powerful wind, and the lights (not to mention everything else in the house not run by batteries) faded slowly out--with lots of dramatic flickering. We were told we might not have power until tonight, so my mother and two of my brothers left to take showers at the church....
Two minutes later....
The lights came on.
(grin) Life looks more hopeful today.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Confessions of a Full-fledged Mountain-raised Hick
Today my feet are sore and blood-blistered. Yesterday they went through extensive, intensive "re-training" on a gravel road. I thought it was time I reinforced the leather-like quality of the underside of my feet. I like them to be impervious to pain, so that on certain days when the weather is too extreme to support the wearing of shoes, I can survive without them. Before yesterday's retraining session, my feet were only semi-sensitive to the gravel. They could handle it--walking. Unfortunately, I went a step too far. I was running, and more than once I misjudged my landing point and came down too hard on a few rocks of the not-entirely-or even-remotely-smooth persuasion. Thus my semi-invalid state today. Now I can't wear shoes. They hurt more than gravel. I had to drive barefoot today. Yes, I admit with pride: I AM a hick. My sister may refer to hicks, rednecks, hillbillies and the like with a tone of disapproval, as though they are lower life forms, but I say: (Aside from the fact that she is one herself--however much she tries, she can't get away from it--nyah-hah-hah!) Long live diversity! Hurrah for hicks and hillbillies! May they live forever!...and so there. Ouch. My feet hurt.
O
As someone recently said to me, he enjoys using the word 'o' whenever possible. I agree, it is an enjoyable word...
O glorious day
O for a muse
O human-becoming
O darn it. (Sorry, couldn't help it--grinning gleefully).....
O heaven! O to be free! O for the wings to fly!
O. It's a jolly good word. Ripping, you might say.
O glorious day
O for a muse
O human-becoming
O darn it. (Sorry, couldn't help it--grinning gleefully).....
O heaven! O to be free! O for the wings to fly!
O. It's a jolly good word. Ripping, you might say.
Monday, June 20, 2005
That said...
So if I meant
To write some words
To say some things
To make you smile
Or if my thought
Was to present
A picture of
A part of me
Or if I wished
To part my lips
And speak my mind
And found it void
Until, until
I found this page
This white and clear
Inviting void
Where I could spill
My slowest thoughts
Then here and thus
I would and do
Speak all I wish
To speak in prose
And poetry
And all I know
And do not know
To you
To write some words
To say some things
To make you smile
Or if my thought
Was to present
A picture of
A part of me
Or if I wished
To part my lips
And speak my mind
And found it void
Until, until
I found this page
This white and clear
Inviting void
Where I could spill
My slowest thoughts
Then here and thus
I would and do
Speak all I wish
To speak in prose
And poetry
And all I know
And do not know
To you
A promise
I hereby swear that, if I can restrain myself, at least every other entry will be in prose.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
On Becoming Human
Inspired by a modern philosopher of English...and by my own state of mind.
O human-becoming, I wonder indeed
What is it that sets you in desperate need
Of someone to tell you that all that you do
Is coincidental, and therefore untrue?
O halfway-to-human, supposing you were
The product of God, if that’s what you prefer
Instead of good time..still, I think that your soul
Is partially empty, and therefore unwhole.
O helplessly human, yet suffering less
Than helpless humanity, would you possess
The key to your being? Much must be begun–
But you are obdurate, and therefore undone.
O human-becoming, I wonder indeed
What is it that sets you in desperate need
Of someone to tell you that all that you do
Is coincidental, and therefore untrue?
O halfway-to-human, supposing you were
The product of God, if that’s what you prefer
Instead of good time..still, I think that your soul
Is partially empty, and therefore unwhole.
O helplessly human, yet suffering less
Than helpless humanity, would you possess
The key to your being? Much must be begun–
But you are obdurate, and therefore undone.
Another Entry Not in Prose
My speech. Sometimes this is the only way I can fully explain what I'm thinking. I'm afraid many of these posts will find their expression in poetry rather than prose....I think I like its ambiguity. I can be obscure; I don't have to explain myself clearly and intelligibly.
Question
Once again I am constrained to think;
My mind retreats and cowers from the mention of exertion.
Should I begin to stumble on the brink
Of sanity, and overfed complacency – conversion
Of truth to idle fancy – , I should sink
Into the depth I once would not approach without coercion.
Once again I am obliged to move;
My members shift but little, and at this they voice objection
Should I remain unbroken, I should prove
The weakness of my will, and also that of my affection:
This travesty I sometimes call my love,
Between which and its Object there is little real connection.
Question
Once again I am constrained to think;
My mind retreats and cowers from the mention of exertion.
Should I begin to stumble on the brink
Of sanity, and overfed complacency – conversion
Of truth to idle fancy – , I should sink
Into the depth I once would not approach without coercion.
Once again I am obliged to move;
My members shift but little, and at this they voice objection
Should I remain unbroken, I should prove
The weakness of my will, and also that of my affection:
This travesty I sometimes call my love,
Between which and its Object there is little real connection.
Enough
I've had enough. I probably haven't, really; but I think I have. It's good enough for me. I can't open a hole in this little brain wide enough to see through clearly. Is there time enough to discover truth enough by which to live? More. I want more. More than enough. Don't mind me; I'm just wishing... Three wishes. Fairy-tales. Never, never, never enough. I lived in fairy-tales. I wanted my life to be that simple, that beautiful. I hid from it. Life is but a dream. A dream! That's no life!--But that was mine. It's not enough.
Everyone thought I was odd. I knew I was. I admired them, but I knew I couldn't be that normal. They tried to help me; I kept running away from their kindness until they finally left me alone. Alone. Then I knew how hopeless that was. Always outside, wishing somehow to scratch the surface, to break through the mirror into reality. I could see love, but I couldn't touch it. I didn't know how to do anything real. Me, I was nothing. An actress. I still hate that child as much as I pity her, if not more. Heavens, this is too raw to be public. --Yet this is an experiment to see if I have thoughts, and if these are my only thoughts... maybe someday they'll be different. Maybe someday they'll be enough.
Dearth. That's all I feel. This person is too small to accomodate anything as large as life. So when am I going to stop trying? Isn't that why we surrender into obedience, submission? Isn't the realization of our evil and emptiness the impetus that drives us to our knees, to our faces in perfect weakness and repentance, broken before holiness? Why am I still raging to rule? I know all too well that is impossible for me; and still I am not broken-- only diseased, wounded, crazed. Is there no end to this all-consuming hatred? What in the name of heaven will break me, if nothing yet has done so? Bleed me dry. Destroy this flesh. Blessed are the meek. Oh, how blessed are they. Enough.
Everyone thought I was odd. I knew I was. I admired them, but I knew I couldn't be that normal. They tried to help me; I kept running away from their kindness until they finally left me alone. Alone. Then I knew how hopeless that was. Always outside, wishing somehow to scratch the surface, to break through the mirror into reality. I could see love, but I couldn't touch it. I didn't know how to do anything real. Me, I was nothing. An actress. I still hate that child as much as I pity her, if not more. Heavens, this is too raw to be public. --Yet this is an experiment to see if I have thoughts, and if these are my only thoughts... maybe someday they'll be different. Maybe someday they'll be enough.
Dearth. That's all I feel. This person is too small to accomodate anything as large as life. So when am I going to stop trying? Isn't that why we surrender into obedience, submission? Isn't the realization of our evil and emptiness the impetus that drives us to our knees, to our faces in perfect weakness and repentance, broken before holiness? Why am I still raging to rule? I know all too well that is impossible for me; and still I am not broken-- only diseased, wounded, crazed. Is there no end to this all-consuming hatred? What in the name of heaven will break me, if nothing yet has done so? Bleed me dry. Destroy this flesh. Blessed are the meek. Oh, how blessed are they. Enough.
Immaturity
I feel like being immature today. Sometimes, my past returns to haunt me...and I shake it off with a shudder of horror. I almost know who I am. I might know who I want to be. I'm terrified of who I've been and who I might become. Mostly I just want to be at peace with all of the aforementioned, and at peace with God.
Why is it I reopen wounds for pleasure from the pain?
Is misery my deepest joy, is loss my greatest gain?
But soft, my heart! Thou canst not know what love and life might be
While thou art spent in raging at thy self-taught misery--
Nay, law shall bind and break thee; liberty shall set thee free.
How dare I to suppose that I am great when I am small?
That I deserve to hope, that I deserve to live at all?
Lie still, thou coiled serpent-mind; breathe not thy breath on me--
Thy poison shall not be my wine, nor bread thy enmity.
O pity! Savior, pity! Heal my soul of leprosy!
Why is it I reopen wounds for pleasure from the pain?
Is misery my deepest joy, is loss my greatest gain?
But soft, my heart! Thou canst not know what love and life might be
While thou art spent in raging at thy self-taught misery--
Nay, law shall bind and break thee; liberty shall set thee free.
How dare I to suppose that I am great when I am small?
That I deserve to hope, that I deserve to live at all?
Lie still, thou coiled serpent-mind; breathe not thy breath on me--
Thy poison shall not be my wine, nor bread thy enmity.
O pity! Savior, pity! Heal my soul of leprosy!
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
This will be me during my precalculus test at 9:30.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Poet-Kind
It’s been a longish while since I last saw fortune smile
Or since last I met a truly happy muse
Most think invention trickles from the poison and the prickles,
Which means poets must perpetually bruise
I hate to think it’s true, some may believe my thoughts are gruesome
But the implication striking me with fear
Is that the muse of sorrow might be here and gone tomorrow
But for my eternal strife to keep it here
My soul is what my soul is, and it lowers the portcullis
Fast against the unfamiliar and unknown
The walls remain unbroken, but the smallest of a token
Of a bribe could well endanger any throne
My mind is stirred and muddied and my paper torn and bloodied
With the vehemence of thought and with the ink
That’s pulsing through my veining and methodically draining
From my heart into my penning as I think
It’s slow, convulsive dying and my fingers are implying
That the time has come to end the sorry farce
They tremble with the passion curving them to force and fashion
Alternating morbid hatred and remorse
The raven haunts me pertly, whether subtly or overtly
As a rigid shadow hopeless to defuse
It’s never my intention to usurp this fine invention
Though it lends its jawed projections to my muse
And, like the shadowed creature, I am bending ev’ry feature
Of the light into the darkness of my words
Unleashing temporary warbles from a weak canary
I am caged the blackest, bloodiest of birds
Come hear my singing, singing; see my soul come winging, bringing
Generosity upon the human race
Dig deeply to my nothing and return with utter loathing
Or with pity on my solitary face
I promised something better than a prison and a fetter
But the chains are worn in darkness out of sight
The sting is where the balm is--keep the fetter, break the promise
Sleep the day in dream, awaken to the night
Cry mercy to begin me, I can find no courage in me
And I’m wading through a formula of life
Disquiet overtakes me and defeat unduly breaks me
And I find that my philosophy is rife
With humanistic pleasure and with holes of ev’ry measure
And what truth remains is difficult to find
But mixed with blood and bruises and subjected to the muses,
Truth invents a paragon of poet-kind.
Or since last I met a truly happy muse
Most think invention trickles from the poison and the prickles,
Which means poets must perpetually bruise
I hate to think it’s true, some may believe my thoughts are gruesome
But the implication striking me with fear
Is that the muse of sorrow might be here and gone tomorrow
But for my eternal strife to keep it here
My soul is what my soul is, and it lowers the portcullis
Fast against the unfamiliar and unknown
The walls remain unbroken, but the smallest of a token
Of a bribe could well endanger any throne
My mind is stirred and muddied and my paper torn and bloodied
With the vehemence of thought and with the ink
That’s pulsing through my veining and methodically draining
From my heart into my penning as I think
It’s slow, convulsive dying and my fingers are implying
That the time has come to end the sorry farce
They tremble with the passion curving them to force and fashion
Alternating morbid hatred and remorse
The raven haunts me pertly, whether subtly or overtly
As a rigid shadow hopeless to defuse
It’s never my intention to usurp this fine invention
Though it lends its jawed projections to my muse
And, like the shadowed creature, I am bending ev’ry feature
Of the light into the darkness of my words
Unleashing temporary warbles from a weak canary
I am caged the blackest, bloodiest of birds
Come hear my singing, singing; see my soul come winging, bringing
Generosity upon the human race
Dig deeply to my nothing and return with utter loathing
Or with pity on my solitary face
I promised something better than a prison and a fetter
But the chains are worn in darkness out of sight
The sting is where the balm is--keep the fetter, break the promise
Sleep the day in dream, awaken to the night
Cry mercy to begin me, I can find no courage in me
And I’m wading through a formula of life
Disquiet overtakes me and defeat unduly breaks me
And I find that my philosophy is rife
With humanistic pleasure and with holes of ev’ry measure
And what truth remains is difficult to find
But mixed with blood and bruises and subjected to the muses,
Truth invents a paragon of poet-kind.
Monday, June 13, 2005
it's true
i don't want to be here. I truly don't. I think I have nothing to say...yet I figure the only way I can find out whether or not I have anything to say is to begin saying some things. So I shall begin in this way, the only way I have spoken openly all my life.
I have what might be defined as the soul of a poet. Reclusive. Introverted. Extremely so. I strive toward excellence in my meager scribblings, but always find them to be no more than that--meager scribblings. I can fool myself for a while, but in the end I know it's only a lot of paper. Rubbish. And my soul is written on the pages--glimpses of it, pictures of it, representations and misrepresentations--that which I see or think I see, and most of all that which I cannot see and long to see. It's all here or there or nowhere. That--this--is my speech. For now. Someday I wonder, will I blink out of this cave into the sunlight? I don't want to be here, and for now I really don't want anyone to know I am here. My words, I think, count for nothing. What can they do? They serve only to explain what is, or to fabricate what is not. I know so little...of what can I speak?
No, i don't want to be here.
I have what might be defined as the soul of a poet. Reclusive. Introverted. Extremely so. I strive toward excellence in my meager scribblings, but always find them to be no more than that--meager scribblings. I can fool myself for a while, but in the end I know it's only a lot of paper. Rubbish. And my soul is written on the pages--glimpses of it, pictures of it, representations and misrepresentations--that which I see or think I see, and most of all that which I cannot see and long to see. It's all here or there or nowhere. That--this--is my speech. For now. Someday I wonder, will I blink out of this cave into the sunlight? I don't want to be here, and for now I really don't want anyone to know I am here. My words, I think, count for nothing. What can they do? They serve only to explain what is, or to fabricate what is not. I know so little...of what can I speak?
No, i don't want to be here.
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