Far Away Words

Look, it’s time to be honest. We’re not suiting each other. I need to move on and let go of this. This is the definition of unhealthy and dysfunctional.

But your god damn persistence brings me back every single time and I fall for it over and over again. 

Because, well, to be fair… Doctor Who is really good and so is Game of Thrones. I really need to see how that ends.

Despite the insanity of the ups and downs, roller coasters are the best things ever and so is the beach. 

And airports! I adore the rush I get when my passport is freshly stamped and I walk out the doors into a new country … and just go. 

There’s unnecessarily red lipstick to be worn and I found a scarf that matches the exact same color perfectly. You don’t see it or notice, but it wasn’t for you. 

Lions and dolphins and every star in every galaxy, ever. The overwhelming reality of space and the almost uncountable strings of astronomical facts and figures are nothing short of exhilarating. The Horse Head Nebulae is just the coolest thing ever.

PIZZA! 

And Star Wars.

And the beauty of a math equation balancing itself out. 

There are so many songs and dances. There are so many books. 

I’ve tried to end this in a million different ways. I’ve tried to leave you but you always make me want you just once more.. 

I guess I love you, Life. 

When the poet died 50 years ago, why didn’t she get an obituary?

A fascinating article by The Atlantic.

Strip me down to nothing.
Lay me out, bare
on a cold metal slab;
it stings like a slap in the face.

De-construct me down.
Down to my molecular level,
to atomic spirals and
my chromosomal structure.
We both need to see it.

What significance lies beneath
this thin veneer
of shriveled skin stability?

The ice of your stare,
the steel of your scalpel
makes quick work
of my heart.

70 beating dreams per minute.
Slowing.
Down.
Down.
Done.

Dissection.
An abstract autopsy
carving your critiques across
my vulnerability,
preforming your pathology
on my pieces
and my prose.

My creativity is your cadaver.
My most private parts
piled on your scale.

Three pounds of poems
and twenty feet of intestines
measured and weighed and bagged.

Sample my syllables.
Analyze my alliteration.
Decompose me down,
my dusty dreams to dust.

I am in a constant state of breakdown.

Rebuilt now with make up,
hiding rigor mortis.

It’s already set in.

“There once was a girl who lived alone, in many homes. She was incredibly curious and a little frightened. An introverted and bookish traveler, she dreamt of faces and places she loved but never saw. She sensibly reasoned through the emptiness of life while wistfully looking forward to the wondrous moments of beauty elapsing through the universe. With sighs of happiness and hurt, she scribbled endlessly on sheets of blank paper, trying to fill the voids with fact and fascination.”

—

Translation Notes:

* ohayo gozaimasu – good morning

** Shoppai – salty

*** Zettai akiramenai – Never give up

I wrote this a year ago, just a couple of days after the horrific disasters that affected Japan so violently. Today, in honor of the pain and grief and strength and hope, I want to share this poem with you.  My heart has been a torrent of painful emotions. As always, I found myself taking pen to blank paper and scrawling out nonsensical patterns of useless vocabulary with nonexistent meter. I am an escapist. I use and manipulate art to fit my own needs. I let it carry me off, far away into  a calmer, more tranquil state of mind. Poetry, despite my lack of skill, has always been a distracting trail down which to wander.

I am feisty and opinionated and strong willed. I’ve always been fiercely independent, walking out the door, leaving a trail of passport stamps in my path, never looking back. I’m fierce about my alone time but am easily able to mingle in new social settings (even if it takes a bit of mental build up for such an introverted girl as myself). 

I know what I want. I know what I like. I’m never lukewarm about anything. I’m well educated; I’m articulate; I have a good sense of humor; I’m cultured and well read. I’m quite proud of myself and the things I’ve already accomplished in my life. 

I appreciate my own quirks and don’t take my nutty idiosyncrasies too seriously. I’m into nerdy, eccentric things and my passions are easily roused for them. I can chat endlessly for hours about nothing and yet shrink up into a ball of inept shyness because I have to make a phone call. I’m contradictory and unpredictable and often quite ornery, but I’m loyal and patient and an all around nice human being.

I am alive with emotions and ideas. Generally speaking, I like myself quite a lot and, flaws notwithstanding, I don’t want to change. 

So why the hell can’t I believe that I’m worth someone’s love? Why does all of my awesome “Me-ness” disappear when I look in a mirror? The strength of my resolve for truth, compassion, equality, justice, logic, love and every other virtue evaporates into petty insecurity because men don’t find me suitably fuckable. 

I. Am. Ridiculous. 

If men don’t want to be around me because my stomach isn’t flat enough and my arms wobble, they are not the kind of people who will be able to stimulate my mind or enrich my heart. They are not going to make me laugh or help me see beauty and tenderness and wonder. And they are not the kind of people who deserve to know the sweetness between my legs and buried in the depths of my soul. 

I am enough as I am and I shall be myself again. 

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

— Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath