Friday, December 16, 2011

now that i'm in thailand i can think

sometimes you're in that shitty mood where you're emotionally and physically exhausted because you care too much about your job and what's left is lamb meat brain today. plus, you haven't showered in three days and you wear your hair in a bun hoping no one will notice the grease (you didn't have time to take a shower bc you wanted no less than 4 hours of sleep each of these last three days) and then you realize you haven't had anytime to feel anything or think about anything remotely close to yourself except in your attempt to try to do a few minutes of exercise a day.

and then you have inner dialogue that goes, "okay- i feel raw and rubbed down to only feel my most basic needs because i barely eat and sleep and now all i want to do is feel sad and take my head to place where it belongs: poetry."

this one, now that i am in madrid i can think by f. o'hara, makes me feel particularly at home inside myself:

I think of you
and the continents brilliant and arid
and the slender heart you are sharing my share of with the American air
as the lungs I have felt sonorously subside slowly greet each morning
and your brown lashes flutter revealing two perfect dawns colored by New York

see a vast bridge stetching to the humbled outskirts with only you
Standing on the edge of the purple like an only tree
and in Toledo the olive groves’ soft blue look at the hills with silver
like glasses like and old ladies hair
It’s well known that God and I don’t get along together
It’s just a view of the brass works for me, I don’t care about the Moors
seen through you the great works of death, you are greater

you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone together.


but you read it quickly and hang out with friends who don't talk about sadness because they value sarcasm more. you forget about all the sadness until you get home and finish those few minutes of exercise. and then you read the poem attentively with the kind of concentration it deserves.

you also recall hanging out with someone you didn't know that well in college recently in this new universe that you live in. it was so surprisingly nice. something about that- where you were, who you with, and what you were doing or maybe it's the overlapping history you share- allowed this really warm part of you to come out in way that convinces you that you haven't been yourself this whole time. the warmth of feeling comfortable in your vulnerability with someone that makes you question how much of yourself is really here. the feeling came with the complete disregard for my surroundings about as if i had been here for a long a time and it was so normal to see an old friend in a new city. or the fact i could tell someone that as often as there are amazing, life-changing developments here for me, i live alone in that experience. there's really no way to share it with anyone and i feel so sad that this is just how it is right now. i also told him that the guiding light for me here is how much i'm inspired the unwritten future of youths and how well they hold their own torches as they create these amazing paths.

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