One Dinghy, No Coxswain

If I were a boat, I'd drift. Away from you.
That's all boats really seem to do.

Not any way in particular;
I don't know how it happens.
North, South, East, West -
We all seem to float away to world's end.

Don't lose her,
Don't lose him,
Don't lose them.
Don't lose you.

What's in my sail?
Whatever it is, bernoulli's taking me
Into a bottomless sea of books and papers
And more: that which I love.

Sinking into a sea of my passion,
Drowing within a sea that I've fashioned.

Too musch Self,
Not enough Else.

Or am I even drowning?
Perhaps it's the new surroundings?
And I'm only drifting.
Into complete humidity.
250%. Learn to breath the water, and then I'll see.

It's only
Too much Self,
Not enough Else.

If I were a boat, I'd drift away from you.
After all, that's all I ever seem to do.

Realization:

It begins, tomorrow at 8:50.

Surreal beyond reality.

And I'm in denial,
And I know we'll forget our cold feet once we're swept up in the currents,
And I know we'll all be looking back at our shores, reflecting at year's end.

Fortunately, all we have to go is forward.

(written August 24, night before 09-10 school year's beginnings)

July 4th, 2009

As I lay on a towel, surrounded by friends, the lights flashed. A shot, a whistling, an explosion, a crackle. Lather, rinse, repeat. Fireworks in a nutshell, an Independence day tradition begun in 1777. We've celebrated every birthday since the Declaration was signed, and in true American fashion: defiantly. We claim our nation's birth happened on the day we realized its conception, rather than on the day it was physically born and recognized by others.

And we celebrate it with explosives; candles on a grand scale.

A quote I read online the day before struck me as I watched - "Destruction is the purest form of art." An artillery shell fired with a resounding "pop," and I followed the little ball high into the sky, starry and filled with smoke. At the peak of its journey, like a tiny kamikaze pilot who had reached his destination, the ball erupted in a flash of light, leaving only smoke in its wake (smoke that didn't seem to bother any of us, my environmentalist self included this time).

And yet there was something more left in its wake.

Every ball burst into something new with its destruction, something new and something actually beautiful. I realized that there, in that place, lying on the ground surrounded by friends as we stood back and watched the fireworks, celebrating something that is both distinctly American and universally human, destrudtion and creation were coming together, overlapping, one leading to another in a way we rarely see. Each firework embellished the sky with color in a self destructive blast that created an impact, a message. Pure, brutal, destructive, artistic.

And for once, the quote was true.

Metaphorically, the fireworks transcend even giant candles crowning a giant cake of America. They're symbolic of "the bombs bursting in air," the battle that had to be fought before America the idea could become America the nation. They're symbolic of how our country is founded on the dismantling of a system. Like the way a phoenix bursts into flames to be born again from the ashes, they're symbolic of how sometimes, destruction is the purest form of creation.

suicide, blonde?

I am pathetic.
It's a fact,
(Or at the very least,
An assertion I can back up with personal examples
That would kill every personal essay in a 200 mile radius).
I'm cliché.

But I think I'm ok with that.
I come by it honestly;
And with any luck, eloquently.

Here's to hoping it doesn't get old.

So it begins.

Are you familiar with the compulsion
To just...
Go?

I feel like picking up a bike, driving,
Even rowing an inflatable kayak could do it,
As long as I have the handle bars, the gas pedal, the paddle.
As long as I'm creating the illusion of motion for myself.

Just going.

It's pathetic.

Not really anywhere, either, simply somewhere.
Somewhere I can have my thoughts,
Release my energy,
Focus.

And then come back to life,
As it is,
With all it's beautiful hues of grey and varieties of complications
That I have always loved, and now rob me of the simplicity that I have always loved
(But never actually had).

So I'm asking for life to
(temporarily)
Be put on old.

Not gonna happen:
It hasn't before
And it won't now.
It's simply a fictional fantasy.

But this, reality, is real,
And it holds all of the limits
That make life a little less romantic
And a lot more life-like.

That alone is romantic enough
For a hopeless romantic to admire.

And after all, pathetically hoping for something that you know won't happen
Is the definition of hopelessly romantic.

and the pen keeps scratching

Why is it it that a month or two ago can feel like yesterday,
While there's an eternity between a week ago and now?
[perhaps it's because I still find last week a little hard to imagine, and I feel the same about eternity,
but a month or two ago felt so good (in retrospect, all I remember are the good things) that I couldn't help but accept and love it as my reality?]

--

Have you ever had twelve glasses of water in a day, maybe more, only to go to bed and find that you're still thirsty, not because the water was that good, but because it's like you never had any at all?

--

I own a guitar,
But the only person I ever serenade is myself.

It's like this blog;
I walk away knowing there is but one person who might read what I've written.
And perhaps I'll hear about it;
I know she can relate
To the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.

(however, these aren't exactly griefs,
nor am i wild, no matter how unknown)

And maybe I won't hear about it,
Though I'd certainly like to.
But like with the guitar, it's nothing new to have a listener and never realize they're there.

I'm not feeling particularly poetic,
Or creative.
Too many thoughts and feelings and too much lack feeling to draw on it all.
It's too much material to actually focus into art.
I think that's why I'm typing this.

--

how it all began
Is still my favorite of my poems,
And why shouldn't it be?
Who doesn't like beginnings?

Afterthoughts are for endings,
So I've decided I'm not having afterthoughts.
Who said this was the end?

It just happens to be a change.

Is this the desert then?
Numbness and thirst would seem to say so.
Except profound numbness makes it hard discern if the thirst is really there.

If this is a desert, it's outward appearance would deceive.
But facades and mirages really aren't that different.
If this is a desert, is the right action to persevere,
Or do you give some things up?

Patience will either be key
Or suicidal.
I'm not sure which yet.

Either way, all you can do is drift.
And drifting is almost always away.

--

So it's still chapter VII,
And the pen is still scratching.

Funnier yet how two months can change your life (and your world).

Funny how a mere 18 days can change your world.