Tuesday, November 30, 2010

My Exhausting Affair

I have a deep rooted love affair with language. I am mesmerized by the way words can be tangled and weaved into something amazingly beautiful. I could spend hours sighing over the colorful arrangement of letters and sounds. My secret "little black book" is a list of literature I plan to read or have read; a list of previous love affairs tucked discreetly in my purse. I get carried away sometimes with the simplest quote or witty statement. It sweeps me off my feet. Shakespeare in his time probably could've had his way with me.

I'm a word connoisseur, my cruelest critic. Nothing ever seems perfect enough. Nothing is ever finished. I can't even find the perfect prose to describe this exhausting affair.

"Look at you fumbling over the right things to say... and you call yourself a poet." I mumble to myself.

Sometimes this blog forces me to create and other times it forces me to "publish" what I believe to be intolerably flawed. I read it over and over shaking my head. My heart jumps as I push the POST button. Instantly it appears on my blog. I want to take the words back again, like a call you wish you had never dialed.

Emily Dickinson was once told, "Your poems are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities."

I often speak the same words to myself.

However, the passage of time turns literal crap into beauty. When I read something I wrote five months ago, I'm transported to that exact moment of emotion. I can feel exactly what I was feeling when I first wrote those words. That is why I keep punishing myself with this love affair. By carefully building word and phrases, I can make something meaningful. It helps me remember. It makes me stronger.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Vomit Haiku

It's three thirty-five am,

Why did I order calamari?

Head in the toilet.