I call this piece: An All Too Serious Joke

In the ever wise words
of Rilo Kiley,
I'm not my perspective.
I want you to know.
But too often my perspective
is all the world sees,
I become controversial,
a mere symbol of a war waged
between ideologies.
A pawn in the fucking game
of life, represented
by my ideas and my actions.
Actions speak louder than words
but you can't understand my actions
without hearing my words.
A perfect catch-22
where without conversation
my actions become meaningless,
or unintelligible:
clay to be molded by any artist
into exactly what they desire.
Fantastic, but that's not me.
Just so you know,
I'm not my perspective.
I'm growing tired of endlessly
justifying myself
to those who miss the point.
I'm sick of running in circles
with people, watching them try
to catch their own tails,
and to what end?
(That's a joke.)
So much for dialectic materialism,
sorry Hegel, Marx and Feuerbach.
The world really is
going to the dogs.
(That's another joke.)
If a synthesis is so unattainable
what about the philosophy
of live and let live,
is that still too impossible?
I know you may believe in god,
but I'm not interested
in your spiritual warfare.
If we're going to argue or talk
let's talk or argue for the sake
of logic and truth,
not for the sake
of saving my soul.
I'm done convincing people
that I'm not a bad person,
that I'm well-intentioned,
mostly because I shouldn't have to.
I won't adhere to "objective" guidelines,
because no such thing exists,
and simply arguing that fact
is enough of a demonstration
in it's favour.
So yes, let's talk,
but only if we'll make progress,
because the world is full
of enough bullshit already.

Politics, politics,
goddamn politics.
What I learned today
is that one must be blameless,
because when the shit starts flying,
it flies, and none are spared,
and all are incriminated.

Dream

Last night
I saw you.
You were just as beautiful
as I remember,
with that laugh, smile,
twist of the wrist.
A mirage from my past
in the quiet hours
of the night,
behind my sleeping eyes
I saw you.
I remember the desperate
feeling of longing
and the way
you couldn't see me
and the way
I couldn't touch you
when I stretched out my hand.
I remember how painful
it was.
Painful to see
the very image
of you,
knowing that it wasn't you.
Painful to hear your words
and resounding laugh,
but not be heard in return.
I wanted,
so badly,
to tell you
how much I still love you,
and that I think of you daily.
And you were there,
right there,
but you weren't there
at all.
Nothing but empty space
my mind fills with thoughts
and memories
and desires.
Nothing but the embodiment
of pain mingled with nostalgia.
Nothing.
My inability to reach you,
to have ever reached you,
still brings me to my knees.
The world suffered a blow
the instant you departed
and the world has yet
to recover.
Mind tricks;
thoughts reverting back
to times you breathed
because I still can't cope
with the fact
that you don't.
Despite all the beliefs
I've watched burn in the furnace
I like to think that perhaps
you sprouted wings
and learned the harp
if only because I know that
that thought would make you
crack a joke.

My Three-Poems-In-An-Hour Saga

These are three poems I wrote in a row on my way home from work. It's weird because it kind of shows you a typical Corissa thought process (not that I think in poems. Ok sometimes I do). Anyway, enjoy:

Days like these
seem so absurd,
when I can see
my reflection
and the bridge,
looking down
at a water drop
that landed
in my shoe.
When everything
in the water
seems infinite
because there is
no beginning
and there is
no end.

They call you,
claim you to be,
the alpha and omega,
and god how sometimes
I wish you existed.
How selfish.
More selfish still
how I wish that
I existed,
infinite as the ripples
and waves in the water,
infinite as the reflection
in my shoe.

Everything really is nothing
when you live a hundred years,
at best.
And god how I wish
it meant so much more.
And god at the very same time,
and in the very same breath,
it all still means
much too much.
Is this what it means
to be human?
The constant conflict
between being far too little
and far too much.

But 'little' and 'much',
what do these words even mean?
In the very act of using words
they seem to lose meaning
just as in the act of living
life itself seems to become
not-worth-living.
Can one speak
without speaking
or live
without living?
Can one dream
without dreaming?

Even if it were possible,
what would it mean?
Who knows?
At the end of the day,
these things
are all
I have.
And after all,
these are just words
of a poem
written one August day
at a bus stop,
and today
it means far too little.

----------

Today, on the bus,
I want to read my poem,
to stand up and recite it all
just to see
how the world might react.

I'm looking at people,
choosing the ones
I think might get it,
or the ones I think
need to hear it.
Is that arrogant?

You I want to read my poem
because you spent
too much time
on your make-up this morning,
and you I want to read my poem
because you are staring at me,
cupping your face with one hand.

You I want to read my poem
because you have a tacky tattoo
of a Chinese character,
and it probably says 'rice'.
You, well I want you to ask
to read my poem,
because I think
we could be friends.

Among the smiles,
quizzical glances,
and curious stares,
I wonder if anyone
will ask me
what I'm writing.
I wonder if I'll
be brave enough to say,
I'm writing about
you.

I wonder if
they'll ask me
why there's a paperclip
in my hair
where a bobby pin
rightfully belongs,
or why there's a scratch
on my arm,
and I wonder if
it even makes any difference.

I suppose what all
my wonderings mean
is that I want my voice
to be heard,
challenging the world
and its trivial complexities.

So I guess I write poetry.

----------

I saw the same man twice today,
and though I only saw his back,
I knew it was him
because of the way he whistled.

I heard him on my way
to the bus stop,
stopped dead in my tracks, thinking,
'that is an impressive whistle',
turned and watched him,
black t-shirt and jeans,
walking from his car to his house.
I smiled at the eccentricity,
paused, and walked on.

On my way back
from the bus stop,
seven cigarettes
and seven hours later,
who should I hear
from a block away
but the very same man,
black t-shirt and jeans,
walking from his car to house,
whistling.

This time he whistled
something of a different tune.
Stopped dead in my tracks again,
I paused.
Rather than smiling
at the eccentricity,
I wanted to know
why he was whistling,
what he was going home to,
what his idea of success was
at the end of the day,
and whether or not he fit
into his own definition.

I wondered,
if I knew the reason,
would it be something
I could appreciate?
Would it be something
that could make me
want to whistle?
I wondered if the reason
would make me scoff,
wondered if I was better off
not knowing,
then finally wondered
why I was wondering
at all.

A Dare

I'm waiting for you to give an inch
just so that I can take a mile.
Call me selfish,
but more than anything
I want you to leap forward
instead of inching.

I don't mean leaping
in the sense
of commitment
or leaping
in the sense
of blind faith.
I'm not talking
about taking a plunge.
I'm talking about
you.

I want to know
that you are real,
that you think,
that you worry,
that you have qualms
with this universe
and all of its shit.
I want you to care.
I want to share your qualms,
I want to fight them too.

I want to know your opinions,
I want to hear your voice
speaking words
that matter to you,
because that's what matters
to me.

I'm not interested in labels
and I'm not interested
in trophies,
I'm interested in you.
I dare you to show me
what that means.

Take me out on a fucking limb
and talk to me
about truth.
Tell me about the moment
that you hurt the most,
or the moment
that you felt most
deeply betrayed,
and then tell me
what you did about it,
because these are the things
that make a person.

Shed your armour,
and get down from that horse.
I don't want a knight,
I want a man,
real and flawed and beautiful.
As much as I love to dream
and talk about dreams
and imagine dragons
and pterodactyls,
all I really want
is reality.
So pray tell,
who are you?

Fucking Hell,

Another dream.
But this time
it was different.
I don't want
you to think
any less of me,
but I'm still
holding on.
You were there
and so was I
and that was how it was,
until you got distracted
and I turned and walked away.
The only difference
is that this time
you followed.
You took my hand.
And I don't want you
to think any less
of me,
but I can't help
but wait
for that moment
which I know
may never come.

And here's the truth
in so many words:
sometimes at night
I toss and turn,
caught up
in a cold sweat
because of a dream
that I just had
or one I know
I'm going to,
and sometimes
I can't breathe.
For the record,
I've never shed
a tear for you
(but for maybe once,
in a dream of its own),
and I don't intend to.
I don't want you
to think any less of me,
but I somehow
just can't forget.

Obviously I'm still writing poetry about you.

I started scribbling poetry in the margins and gaps of One Hundred Years of Solitude.. I can't help if it's mushy or absurdly fiery and shit ok, Marquez has that affect on me, so don't judge:

In my youth,
passionate,
restless,
unrequited love burns
in my heart
as though it has been licked
by the two-pronged tongue
of a dragon.

Searing holes
unlike arteries
until my heart is nothing more
than rotten fruit,
worm-eaten
and useless
(from the inside out).
A bad apple,
you might say.

Locked up for a rainy day
that is destined never to come,
my heart awaits relief
the stubborn clouds
are unwilling to provide.
Looking to the sky,
the heavens are no help.
Instead I dress myself up
in the image of happiness
and resort to a rain dance
until the sky will comply.

Perhaps this is only youth,
passionate,
restless.