Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Sentiment

I haven't updated my blog in a while, so here you go! Fantastic new poems and even a bit of a commentary for you! For the twelve of you who follow me, I can barely fathom how excited you are right now. Especially the two of you who actually read what junk I post. 
So! Today's commentary!
My life runs in themes. For a day or a week or a month or even a whole year, one thing will repeat itself or come up over and over and over. 
My last theme was honesty and truth. Before that was beauty. 
Currently it's.... Sentiment! 
In every show I watch, every book I read, every movie I see, it talks about sentiment. 
Here's the thing.
Emotions are a part of us. They come with the package. They are chemical reactions in our bodies that send certain signals to our brain which, in turn, makes us "feel" a certain way. We can't really get rid of them. BUT we can avoid them to an extent and control them. I don't hate feelings. I love being happy. I even love a good cry sometimes. It's when emotion controls you, that scares me. 
Example time. 
A certain person I know who, for my own safety will remain nameless, thinks that they are the very picture of reason and common sense. Yet they are the center of every drama, the victim of every insult, the mastermind of every good idea, the spear head behind every attack. Even so they cannot see it. 
Does that make it their fault? I'm not sure. But I'll tell you what that does mean. 
Emotions are very... forward. It's like standing right in the middle of a football field during a big game. (Yes that was a sports analogy from me. Shocking, I know.) When you're right in the thick of it, you have an idea of what's going on. You feel like you're a part of the action. But in reality you could not possibly comprehend everything that was going on around you. That is what emotions do. They magnify everything and zoom in on YOU. They breed selfishness and deceit. We start forming facts to fit our opinions instead of forming our opinions to fit the facts. (A bit of Sherlock for you.) 
When you take emotion out of the equation, or at least try, you distance yourself. Instead of the middle of the field you find yourself in the stands. Some people manage to climb higher than others. The pros and cons of that distance are pretty clear but I'll get to that later. 
In the stands you can see everything. The entire game becomes clear to you. You can see the complexity of the individual pieces and how they work together towards a common goal. That's what life is. It's an incredibly complex dance. Some people are born to be the dancers, moving and shaping the world. Some people are born to watch them, some to follow. 
Personally, I favor the height of the bleachers. If I could, I would climb all the way to the top. Distance sacrifices activity. The further you retreat to see the entire picture, the less you are a part of it. You become an observer instead of a participator. There is a middle ground. It's tricky to find, but it's there. You just have to want it. 
Personally, I'd rather just watch. Sentiment, feeling like I'm a part of the game, the dance, the show, when I know I'm not, feels like a lie to me. There are things in my life that are mine, and in those things I am the dancer. But with people, with school, with friends, with relationships, with social events and gatherings, I like to observe.
There are many who would say that I am anti-social that way. That to be alone is to be lonely. That if I prefer my own company better than the company of others, I must be depressed and sad and begging for their camaraderie. They are wrong.

So here's my point, I suppose. 
Forgive me if I do not cry when we say goodbye. Forgive me if I do not grow nostalgic at the thought of leaving high school forever, if the approaching graduation date does not make me quake with anticipation and fear of what comes next. 
It is not that I do not understand. In fact, I understand better than most. 
It is just that I am watching, carefully, the dancing of the lives around me. I am watching you. How you react, the things you care about, the dance you are creating for yourself. It's beautiful. 
So forgive me if I do not dance. If I prefer not to play the game. 
I'm the scientist in this equation, carefully recording and analyzing the world and these bizarre humans that surround me. I can't ask you to understand me, why I do what I do. I'm a freak show in my own right. All I can ask is that you let me be me. Let me leave sentimentality to the rest of the human race. I don't need it in my life, any more than I've got it. (And I have plenty of it, just ask my journal box!) 
I will let you be yourself. 
Even those of you who scare the living daylight out of me by being Tasmanian devils of wild emotion and unpredictable mood swings, need not fear that I will ask you to be anything more than who you are. 
So please, allow me the same privilege?

Until my next theme, au revoir!

Luna

On the full moon
The world is bathed in a pure white light.
Shadows recede and trees become skeletons in the dark.
But the new moon
Has it's own magic.
The new moon is when she leaves the sky
Comes down to earth like a frozen snow
Blanketing hot summer nights in ice and cold silence.
She lives here
For a time
Among the black that has no name.
The source of light herself,
She can see nothing but the trees,
Faded shadows of the creatures she has seen from the skies
On the full moon. 

Sadness

Sadness is in my blood.
It sludges through my veins
Numbing what is not important
To make the pain more intense.
Sadness is in my joints.
My elbows and knees become weak
Heavy with sorrow
My hands hang uselessly at my sides.
Sadness is on my skin.
Prickling like needles,
Hurt manifests itself in a wave.
Sadness is in the tears I will not shed.
Held back,
The effort of keeping them captive makes the sacrifice meaningful.
Makes it ok to grieve.
Sadness is in the words that echo through my mind
Stinging relentlessly like angry wasps that refuse to die.
Sadness is in the whole of me
Unexpected because it is uncommon.
It attacks without warning, without mercy.
Leaving as quickly as it came.
Sadness is my insanity.
The only one I have to my name.

A question in the dark

A lullaby sung with quiet words on soft lips.
What matters most?
When the sun still shines and all is well,
Who can know what their answer will be?
Until the darkness falls and all is silent,
Who can know the sound of a decision made?
The answer to an age old question:
What would you die for?

Glass House

Let me live in a house of glass
Without a wall to hide behind.
To thrive in harmony with the earth,
Open to eyes and in defiance of the worlds lies.
Living honestly out of choice instead of necessity.
There are no secrets in glass hosues.
There are no more secrets for me. 

Green Room

What if life is the green room
And reality is out the door,
Where we are our true selves.
We become instinctive and finally of substance.
Reality is where we are warriors and peace makers.
Where we fight continually against the forces of evil.
In reality we are unfettered by physical laws.
Only the limits of our creativity can hold us.
That is where things take on new and significant meaning.
That is where we feel pain and euphoria,
Where our hearts soar as high as we can.
Compared to that reality
What is waking life but a green room?
A dull, colorless half life of waiting.
Waiting for what will happen next
Waiting to die
Waiting to fall asleep. 

Laundry Day

There was a time, before my time,
When laundry day meant going down to the river.
It meant washboards and elbow grease and freezing fingers.
On laundry day white sheets were strung up on the land,
Billowing in the wind and filtering bright sunlight onto green grass and daffodils.
The sweet smell of soaps must have filled the air,
Alighting gently with the warmth of the sun.
I can just imagine looking down on a little town.
To me it would have seemed like clouds pinned to the ground,
Undulating lazily in the breeze among the flowers.