feeeeeeelings

[storyrainthejournal]

I'm working on a couple of essay-type posts, one on neologisms (in qualified support of, actually, so there) and one on something a little knottier.

But today I have already cried thrice and am just...tired. So I wrote a poem to process my feeeeeeeeelings.

Luckily I asked for tomorrow off, and will have a long weekend of writing, going to see Beasts of the Southern Wild, hanging with cats and friends, and being someplace lovely, my loft. This will help, as dayjob has been oppressively busy and it's been hard to cadge good writing time.

By all means, skip the poem under the cut. For some reason I feel compelled to post it, perhaps to undermine (totally flout), the rule that says we should only show our happiest most successful selves, emotionally speaking, on the internets.



You live in a rarefied air
Spending weeks in beautiful old cities
With a lovely friend
Writing and wandering and observing
Beading your words into sudden rainsqualls and
Layers of wonder

I go to an office every day
A space where there is no beauty except what I can
Find within
Where the light does not illumine, but glares
Where the windows do not open
Where I long for a good wander in an ancient place
With a friend
For the unfolding and pleating of dreams in daylight hours
While I sit at a desk having to do things for which I care
Nothing

Because I must keep the cats fed
Keep the lights on
Pay exorbitant amounts for the tinctures that keep this body going

Some days I am so full of disappointment and tears
Impotent rage
And so much sadness

That I wasn’t, amn’t, good enough, smart
Enough, didn’t find a congenial mate
Couldn’t make it happen in a better way
So my dreams could live

I want days and nights wound with
Pearls and wind and love
But feel so often
Abandoned by love

In my cup of tea
Reflection
The steam loosens regret
So it falls away
And honey sweetens each sip

I walk down the halls of
This ugly state office building with
My eyes half-closed
Imagining the stutter of light comes through
Stone fretting in ancient walls
Down cobbled alleys
That the brush of air conditioning is wind off the
Sea and archways lead
To open air markets and tiny bookshops
That an endless elsewhere is there for me
That my moments are more free
More lovely
More kind
That I managed better to arrange
This life around joy and possibility

I tried, I try, I open my arms and let light in my
Heart, but today, this day,
I am full of tears and hurt and wonder
Why
But tears are linked to the sea
And they tell me we are made of stars