I was looking over my poetry just now; the few poems that I can still find from my miserably bad submission to the Creative Writing BFA program. It's been only a little over a year since I made the submission, and already they (as well as the fiction piece that I wrote for it) seem to be dried out and uninteresting, like a boat built for water that wasn't really there, sitting above a year-old tide line, dried and cracking, looking to all the world like a waste of wood.
There are only two out of the bunch that I put up on DeviantArt that I still think hold some sort of resonance. I will say this, though, before getting into them: I had depression back then. Like, I know that I have ups and downs, but holy shit, if my mood had been a physical place, that place would have been the bottom of an oil rig in the North Sea.
So without further ado, Meg's Angst:
I am made in my own image,
And I killed my better half out of pride.
I have cursed myself to the wilderness.
I have felt the flood inside me.
I have taken two of every thought
To save in hope.
Suspended on a ship in the waters,
Daring to scrape the sky of my skull
To wait out the rains.
I have let out the dove
And waited for its return.
I have felt the fire inside me.
Brimstone eyelids,
Hair falling down like stone
Razing my shoulders.
I cannot run, but stay,
Cannot look back, but all around.
It is all me.
I am salt.
And I cast boils
And plagues
Poverty, disgrace,
Forsaken my own skin,
Mind, soul.
I wager my salvation.
I walk on coals
In the black belly
Of my own whale.
I liked that one because of the pace, and the sharpness of the verses...and also, I love making biblical references. For me more than anyone else, really.
Then there's this lovely little piece:
In proposals you sounded confident to take my challenge and
I was sure to make improvements: in five weeks, I'll return.
I will be able to reach back and undo the mask so that
My eyes will learn to focus and my brain will learn to breathe.
And I will see all my mistakes and know that they were mistakes.
I will know all of my exes for what they really were and are still,
And then divorce myself completely from what I thought it was.
And you will learn to listen to me and trust me with the car.
And you will realize that I was in a phase, like the moon,
And I was waning once and dark and new but now I'm full
And oh so light and oh so ready to come back with a smile.
I will return, with some nails and some wood to rebuild
What I'd burned when I thought I should get away
And you will wait with arms outstretched on the other side
Ready with comfort and a joking tone of voice
Laughing when you say "why did you think you could go
Because it really was a phase and you were just in shadow."
Mother, it means nothing if you say so.
If this silence will keep our family together
Then when I come across my new bridge,
Meet my lips with a needle and thread and love.
Again, good, and I like my word choice in it a lot, and the extended sentences, but god freaking damn, did I not like my mother. And it's weird. I love my mother. I mean, I still understand the feelings that led me to think this way, but really now I'm more ready to just let it go. I think. Also, it sounds too much like those whiny "I'm in the minority!" pieces, which are good, but, well, whiny.
Going to Vancouver again this Saturday to find me a place to live; because something being easy is boring and I want to put money down two weeks before moving in, that's just how I roll. With danger.
I want so much to possess the motivation to just write the fucking novel and get fucking published, so that I can quit school and find somewhere to live on my own for a year or more. I never get to be in a place alone anymore (though my bedroom door here finally closes all the way). I just want to be a hermit. Not that I hate my friends, or my family, but I just want to think about my life, and not so much about how other people's lives influence me.
Or at least, I could graduate and then go on an unexplained hiatus for a year or so. I've been dreaming of that for a long time, actually: one day to just leave and not come back for a year; no arguing or leaving contact info, just disappearing and leaving a note: went out to find myself. Back in a year. No need to call. Then I would be free to find out who the person inside my skin is, outside of what I am now, which is a bunch of labels: Democrat, Canvasser, Student, Lit Major, Floridian, Canadian. It's all where I've been and what I do, and I'm still having trouble finding the I Am in there. Of course that's always a transitional thing, shut up, I know, but I still think that I (and anyone else who wants it) should get some personal time off from life's obligations.
That being said, what's probably going to happen is that I'm going to graduate, take a year off, earn enough money to pay for grad school, and depending on who is President, get my teacher certification and work. If (when) Obama wins, I will come back, apply for his teaching program as soon as it's up and running (hopefully soon), go to school for free, then teach for four years at a high needs school, which I think will be a strengthening experience to say the least. Then there's whatever comes after that, and if I like teaching, I'll stick with it.
If Obama loses, then I'll stay in Vancouver (provided that I get a job), and then either get my certification for teaching K-12 or find a TAship and hopefully get through grad school to a masters in English or, hey, go for that Creative Writing deal again and even work up to an MFA instead of just the BA. End result: I want to get some form of Grad School, unless I find something super-successful in the meantime that I can stick with.
My stomach hurts, I'm tired, and I have a physical tomorrow. A girl physical. Pray for me and my uterus.
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