Bear with me here (slightly revamped)

This is the culmination of an overactive mind and note-taking for Criminal Law tomorrow. As you can see, I got a little distracted from chapter 17 and decided to write. So four or so hours later, here’s the result. Its one part truth, two parts fictitious exaggeration and three parts tired fluiness. But its either this or let it disappear into the bowels of my computer. So read on.

It has no plot, no title and the repetitive style probably means you’ll get half way and tune out. But I think that’s all part of it.

Who the bloody hell is she?
This is not an easy question to answer. Who am I? Really? For a while I’ve been mulling this over; letting it role around the inside of my head, onto paper alongside hot chocolates and morning sun. Is that person I talk to in the mornings, throughout the day and late into the night – that voice in my head – me? Am I that person who puts my car into neutral and lets my little brother push it out of the driveway just to see if we can? Am I that person who taught herself to grin lopsidedly in early high school? Who loves to laugh and fool around? Whose sense of humour is strange and quick and slightly twisted. Or am I that girl who stands so close to the mirror every morning and searches her own face while putting on foundation and concealer? And when I finish, is that me or just my daily mask staring back? That person who laughs and jokes and grins just to give the impression that she’s happy – to prove that she is fine. That person who even when she is not fine, even when she cried herself to sleep, will still laugh and grin and joke and fool, because that is who she wants to be. Because she collects the joker from the pack of cards.

Am I the girl who feels the eyes of the world so sharply on her every movement, even the eyes that aren’t turned her way? What must they think of me? And why do I care? The person who tells herself she is being stupid – they don’t care. They don’t care. So why do you?
Who dissects and analyses

Every.

Little.

Thing.

Until she is sure she’s done something so wildly embarrassing and what must people think of her? People don’t think of her. And is that worse?

Why didn’t you say that then? Where did your words go?

Who finds talking to strangers so exhausting, who finds talking to people so exhausting.

But who loves the people anyway.

The naive one, the innocent one. Takes so long to make friends, to open to people but once there would walk through fire for them. Who wouldn’t doubt their word. Who finds it so hard to let them out of her heart, because they proved themselves just by making it in. Who never loves by halves, never hurts by halves. Who exists to make others feel comfortable and wanted and happy. And smile at them, because somebody who smiles is an ally. We love dogs because they are so happy to see us – so why shouldn’t that work on people too?

Whose mind won’t stay still, is always writing stories, imagining scenes, wishing, hoping, fooling itself. Whose expectations are set too high, so that when things don’t meet them (and they don’t) she feels let down by the world around her. Or is she letting the world down herself?

What about that person who reads the horoscopes and hopes they’ll tell her what she wants to hear. Who so dearly wants to believe in a higher power; be it fate, be it Karma, be it God. But when all is said and done… there is still so much doubt.

The girl who feels so much but cannot show it. The girl whose heart stays firmly up her sleeve with those five aces because if nobody knows how she feels, its easier to pretend you aren’t hurt. Because isn’t being hurt a sign of weakness? And isn’t it better to show a lopsided grin or lighthearted grimace than to bother people with trivial things you can’t express in words alone.

Am I the person who likes to test the water first. Whose opinions change to align with others, unless she feels strongly enough about these things. Who always waits for invitation. Who believes in polite conversation and never putting people out. Who listens to opera, Sinatra, Metallica, Dire Straights, Something for Kate, Linkin Park but never never rap. Except to dance to. Who loves to throw herself around the dance floor, even though she can feel uncoordination flowing through her every movement. Who stands back in front of that mirror and watches herself move to Black Eyed Peas or Old Blue Eyes. And loves the way it feels to move, wishing she could dance properly, but letting the music move her mind so she thinks she can. Who judges a song by its lyrics and wraps stories around the words as they flow. Who sings with her eyes closed when nobody is around.

And will talk to animals.

Am I the mumbler?

The joker?

The writer?

The analyser?

The romantic?

Is this even me? Or is this my insecurities, my affinity for melodrama talking?

bugger it

Yup. That's it.

Cop Out

Yes, I know it's a cop out to post poetry on your blog, especially when said poem isn't your own and is one, chances are, that all of you out there in internet land have read. Well, the educated part of internet land in the very least.

But I love this poem. Symbolism, rhyme, meter, its excellent use of imagery to invoke emotion, the way it portrays the fragile mind... Are you yet getting the impression that I studied it last year in lit?
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It even has internal rhyme. I'm a sucker for a good interal rhyme (I love you Edgar Alan Poe)

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In every way it is wonderful, it speaks to me.

I ask you to do me only one favour whilst reading it. When you get to the 'yellow smoke', will somebody out there tell me they see a dog and not a cat? Please?

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Enjoy.

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The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, 'Do I dare?' and, 'Do I dare?'
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!')
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!')
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in

upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and

snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all' —
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.'

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail

along the floor —
And this, and so much more? —
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a

screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
'That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.'

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

--T.S. Eliot

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To all of those going out tonight - have fun.

And to all of those curling up in bed and watching TV that they would never publically admit to watching - god speed. I'm there with you.

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- C