As it is National Poetry Month, seems fitting to start posting an actual poem on Friday. This one resonated with me today as I've been spending a lot of time right now analyzing the past to see if I can make a better decision for the next chapter. A convoluted way to say that I have zero idea what I'll be doing next year. I might be on the same campus (but NOT in the dorm). I might be in Dubai. I might be teaching English. I might be teaching in a studio again. I might be bagging groceries. I dunno.
Some of this, is no doubt, triggered by watching all the seniors getting ready to launch into their college life and having a wish that I could do be doing the same. Starting fresh. Crafting a better life.
But, for now. It's Friday and I'm off for the weekend and get do nothing but rest.
Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering
any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering
any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
"Antilamentation" by Dorianne Laux from The Book of Men. © W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
ReplyDeleteyou end up here.
See, that's the thing: along with the flailing you realize, as you read back over prayer journals and such, you end up in the same place. This seems as good a year as any to skip the flailing.
Off to Seattle sometime in the next while as Amazon has called. Again. We're spending 3 days on their dime for one interview. We don't know what's next, either.
Not so much flailing as wondering how to pack things into boxes~big difference between chucking stuff in storage for two years vs. moving across the street.
DeleteSeattle!! Stock up on full-spectrum light bulbs.
It would be SO much easier if you could just do music as a hobby - as Steve, who is so happy being part of the BB Chorale - than be solo trying to make a decent living from your many talents. Am praying (for real) God has something good in store for you.
ReplyDeleteThank you! It's time for a new chapter, for sure!!
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