Still working on the title. Maybe sisters and mothers.
I can only imagine her pain-
Solitude in a crowd
Neglect in nagging concern
Nothingness in brim,
That led her to take the pills.
I can only imagine her pain-
Quiet, sweet restraint
Suffering in silent smiles-
(Can’t let the kids know)
When daughter attempts sister’s way out.
My pain I know.
Don’t fall, leaf! Hang on
To that stringy sinew
Anchors you to life
Don’t fall, leaf! Hold strong
Through the torrent till
Light of cool spring returns
Don’t fall, leaf! We need
The knowing:
November can’t kill you yet.
The leaf-stains left by rain on Fallen limb-partsLaying limp on cold concrete
Mar my walk Home.
I ponder the shapes–
Maple, Garden-variety.
Tomorrow’s sun ascends
A humble soul performs
His role:
Sweeps and mops while he walks.
Leaves cleared, cement unstained–till the leaves fall
again.
Pale icing on a green cake
Boasting brown misshapen sprinkles
This world is rock with earth caked on.
Pudding plods, bleached
Thinned out by some cosmic fork
Whisked around the world and left in layers above the mountain crags
Today, still. But not ever so
Some days, the dairy expires gray, dull
And the clouds lose their magnetic chin-pull.
I read an article on Rolling Stone
About gang-rapes at college frats
And administrators and “friends” who preach silence.
My eyes are a keg at the end of the night.
I think back on
A party of my own
When I danced with my friends in a cage at a club.
How dare I cage my own
femininity?
How dare I mock
my sisters, screams smothered,
And willingly
showcase my submission?—but
when push comes to “love,” it was just another party.
Sometimes I need to vent my unhappy thoughts to you, little Blog. But then when I’m happy and busy doin my thing, I forget to come back to you. I guess what I’m trying to say is: Sorry, Blog. Sorry for loading you down with sadness and forgetting to tell you about the goodness.
I’m three weeks into my second semester of college. (WOOOOOO! COLLEGE!) I hang out with my boyfriend every day, and I also chat with my girlfriends all the time. I’ve only missed two classes so far, and I do most of my homework. I visit my Hospice patient weekly; she’s a joy to talk to. I’ve started training for a halfironman that I hope to do this June with my mom. I write Fairytaleboy every Sunday. I go to paint parties that stain my clothes irreversibly, and stay out till three chilling at Denny’s or Walmart (the only places open 24 hours round here). I’m reading Wolf Hall, and though I love it, it’s going slow.
I look up jobs over and over, only to find out that they won’t fit my schedule. I look up ways to get into med school, and internships abroad, and how does Vultures go again? I look up whether Steven Hawkings is still respected in the scientific community, and which ancient civilization The Emperer’s New Groove is based on. I look up valentines gift ideas for guys and coupons for food. I look up when are you most contagious, before or after symptoms start? I look up how to say “you make me blush” in French, and I look up how much I’ve spent already. I look up my grades, and answers to homework, and what is the full-ride scholarship cutoff GPA? (Missed by 0.01. Rats.)
In short, Blog, I’m happy.
I’ve been here for hours, and thanks to the delay, I’ll be here for hours more. My boyfriend isn’t responding to my texts and I’m second-guessing fairy-tale boy’s feelings for me–and mine for him*.
What is it about being alone in busy, bustling places that makes us so very aware of our own isolation? Is it the constant reminder of just how many people there are out there (I am alone when there are so many people I could be with)? Is it the sight of so many happy couples and endearing families that reminds us who we aren’t with? Or is it mere paranoia–that feeling of being watched or judged–at play?
I don’t know. All I know is that I’m surrounded by people but I feel so alone.
*Fairy-tale boy is not my bf. He is on a mission in Cambodia, and I have no idea whether I love him as a friend or more.
Best Friend,–
“BEST FRIEND?!” Wherefore art thou best friend?
These words that should smell sweet just pierce like thorns.
What but more words will make my sorrow end?
If only I’d heard sooner those damned battle horns!
I cannot think what more I could have done
to eschew that title which we both now bear–
Such a fool! To think I had the whole war won…
But we (woe is we!) we two can never be a pair.
And yet, I dare not admit defeat:
My victory will be self-sacrifice
When I see you two lovers meet,
I will be nice. I will be nice.
I’ll smile and mean, “I’m happy for you!”
And hope and pray my tragedy’s almost through.
***
I know it’s unusual for the author to analyze a poem of their own creation, but I felt like explaining what I wanted to portray for a few reasons: 1) I don’t want to forget what I originally intended, so why not write it down? 2) If anyone actually reads my blog, I’d appreciate some feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. So. Here goes nothing.
This sonnet is obviously inspired by the bard, but I’ll just explain a bit about some of the things I tried to do. The first line is meant to portray the narrator reading a letter addressed to “Best Friend.” That’s because, well… I got that letter a while back. The admittedly cliche thorns line was meant to be an allusion to the famous rose metaphor (is it technically a metaphor?) associated with Juliet’s balcony scene: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I’ll skip ahead to the final quatrain. The repetition of “I will be nice” hopefully makes it clear that the narrator is trying to convince herself as well. I mention self-sacrifice, which initially refers to the narrator playing nice and also alludes to the suicides at the play’s end. This, coupled with the final line, could make the narrator seem suicidal.
ALTERNATIVELY, for those optimists out there, I wanted the last line to also be read as a hope that the tragedy within the narrator’s life, rather than the life as a whole, is almost through. (Or that, as the remaining Montagues and Capulets discover Romeo and Juliet’s true love at the end of the play, so would the narrator find out that her love is, in fact, reciprocated.)
And for the record: I’m not suicidal. Just jealous.
Pic from www.afoolsjourney.com
Well, it’s done.
I’m sitting in an airport waiting for my delayed flight to come. As soon as my plane arrives, I’ll get to visit home for the first time since the semester started. It was a pretty awesome first semester of college:
I also may or may not have learned that blue cream soda, milk, snow, a whole habanero pepper, and an empty stomach do not make a good combination. Yuck. (See? Mormons throw up in college, too!)
that blog about 