Day 30

100 Words for 100 Days June 13 - Sept 20

Progress Bar from Writertopia

I'm still not caught up with the 100 Words. But I also have two reading diaries I need to write for this week before I can turn to fiction with a clear conscious.

Title: Enough

Sitting at my desk,
squirming under facts I preferred to ignore.
But there they are, painting a horrid view of me.
Black words on white paper
I’m not too stupid to misunderstand the truth.
Tiny, insignificant events blown out of proportion
Again
Again
Again

ENOUGH

There is a monster in me.
A screaming banshee
once unleashed frightens me.
But she hides the other monsters in me
The subtle seducer
proclaiming I’m worthless
and everyone can see it, laughing at my humilitation.
The vaporous procrastinator
avoiding everything
rather than prove the worthless charge correct.
The drama queen
wailing at and for the seducer and procrastinator
feeding off my inability to stop them
unleashing the banshee to wreak havoc.
Because if my life is ruined, everyone should share the pain.

ENOUGH

But I have only seen the violence of the banshee
All the other monsters speak the truth
It must be true because I can’t write
so I’m stupid
so I’m a failure
so I’m a fool
so I’m worthless
and I must hide it from everyone.

My friend is right.
She says I have an ego problem
It needs to appear to be the opposite of everything the seducer says
and look out when I can’t measure up.
“But I’m a fucking failure! I have to hide that!”
“No, you make mistakes.
And you beat yourself up over them.”

ENOUGH

I can’t live like this
I can’t work like this
I can’t pursue happiness like this
I can’t fear all this

“Fear is the mind-killer.”
The drama queen, seducer, and procrastinator blink.
“I have had enough.”
Heads turn to exchange glances of confusion.
“I let you have power over me because
I didn’t believe in me.”
Confusion shifts to fear.

ENOUGH

Of the insecurity
Of the fear
Of the paralization
Of the hiding
Of your poison.

“I believe in me.”
Swing the door shut—the heavy steel door
blocking the voices of the drama queen
the seducer
the procrastinator
the banshee screaming I need them.
Who thought the jailer could be free?
“I believe in me.”

Notes: Finally done. Confession poetry is good for the soul. And I wasn’t going to do it because it seems like the stereotypical MFA “victim story” and I want to entertain readers. But I couldn’t work on anything else until this was written out. It was supposed to be the sequel to “I Don’t Like You, Poetry.” Maybe now I can work on that one.

Part of my problem is admitting that I’m human. I brood over my mistakes, convinced that I’m damned and doomed. And I avoid going back to the things that damned and doomed me. Instead of laughing and letting go og my embarrassment and moving forward, I refuse to read poetry so I won’t feel or appear to be stupid. It’s time to admit that, and finally let it go. And let it go everytime I do it.

And I'm caught up with 100 Words and homework! (I still need to comment on other's work for class but I can get that done tomorrow and Saturday.) Posting the Reading Diary here and then getting started on fiction!

Reading Diary 9

What About the Light on the Window?

I mean the bounced back light
that mirrors my own face
looking in, my body cast
on the dark outside
of the hotel window
like something not quite
developed, a man still
in the midst of transmission.
There are spaces, places you
can see through my body
to the parked cars
and pillars of the downtown
cloverleaf—what a beautiful word
for everyone hurrying, for the tangle
of traffic that travels my shoulders
and chest. What a shame
for the light to stream so far
and be stricken on a hotel
window in Albany, New York,
and me in the spell of my own
vain moment, as if I contained
what hurried behind me
and where they were going
and even the mechanical surf
sound of car wheels on concrete.
And even the skyline—spire,
wedge, thicket of aerials.
What a vague shape a body
makes when you're looking in,
barely more than a window
itself. What a slim thing
for the light to bounce back,
having washed so far
in little packets and waves.
I could look a long time
at the steadiness
of parked cars, the flourish
of blown paper that proves
the wind, the traffic navigating
the cloverleaf in my shoulder,
through my shoulder, the skyline
of Albany like a city inside,
but not really inside, whatever
light grants as it goes.

Max Garland

http://www.poetrydaily.org/poem.php?date=13690

This poem is one big image that no one ever talks about, what you see through a reflection in a window. I like how it goes from the wonder of that image and the cityscape seen beyond it, to feeling sorry for the light. It fits in well with the worship-the-sun poetry I was reading a few weeks ago. One of the last quotes in the book basically said the sun is responsible for all life on Earth and how badly do we take it for granted. The poet takes what could be a vain stance “I have a city in me” and transforms it into something granted by the light in the last line.