So, for whatever reason, I've been feeling like putting some of my writing up, so here is a poem I wrote that I really love.
I Am Not Your Touch Tank Sea Star
When I’m a sea star
I hold the sea’s mystery in my purple
Yet I live at the tips of my spines
Erected like walls to protect
My soft center from being hurt or feeling
The hurt I’ve already been.
As I scavenge along the bottom
For bull kelp and sea lettuce
I cling to any steady surface
With tube feel like a miser who knows
I don’t deserve the water
And I don’t let anyone touch me
Sometimes I’m a sea cucumber
Spikes only ward my demons off for show
I let them go tender
And as I lay exposed
My past creeps up behind me
Slithering inside my open sores
Carrying their torches of truth
I feel them settle in my gut
So I twist it around them, bunch it up
With a hurl I eviscerate my organs
And scramble to grow new insides
Once I was an octopus
Used eight arms to lift the top of the holding tank
Squeezed out, dropped to the floor and crawled
Through the crack under the door
Famished on the sand, inching forward
Telling myself I will not let them
Make me let myself die
If I can give me a little slack and a lot of love
I might make it
Back to the deeper seas I knew before captivity
Where they can’t coax me back
To put me in the big tank, captive
For their audience
I am free
On a blue moon I’m a blue dolphin
On waves with deeper frequency
Intelligence unfocused on rational thought
Feel no shame for stranding myself
To help a member of my pod in need
Sensed out with echolocation
Weathered harsh, howling storms
By surrendering to their windblown frenzy
I know the patterns of Earth’s turning
I have been to blue depths
Today I just want to be
Myself
Deep down
I am
The sea.
I wrote this in the summer of 2003 so it's several years old now. That spring I worked OEE (Outdoor Environmental Education) on Orcas Island. During that season, I had to teach challenge and science classes to groups of kids, mostly in fifth or sixth grade (but there were a few groups younger and older). Some of the science classes included pond ecology, forest ecology, the water cycle, microforest, "Super Salmon" and most notably related to this post, marine invertebrates and marine mammals.
I had a rough time for a lot of reasons, one being that I was not so familiar with this material before I worked there. I had taken some basic environmental science class but nothing in depth on marine life. And a lot of these creatures we were looking at and studying were soooo small I could barely see them, much less make distinctions and identifications. So I was learning as I was teaching, and learning by teaching. At the same time I was going through some intense personal stuff, and felt stressed out always having to be so "on" for the kids. There were a lot of fourteen-hour days and I remember walking around, going from class to class at different locations around camp with this poem in my head, the words coming together around my own personal struggle and what I was learning about marine life.
And just FYI the octopus part is based on a real story that happened that spring. An octopus really did escape a holding tank by somehow lifting the lid and slithering out. I can't remember all the details, I want to say it died trying to get back to the water, but am just not sure if I'm recalling that accurately. I remember feeling so inspired by that octopus' instinct for freedom.
All in all, I am not absolutely satisfied with the poem - to me it feels too prose-y. And that is always my issue. I don't think poetry comes naturally to me. I don't read a lot of it, and blasphemous as this may sound, I don't like much of it. When I find a poem or a poet I like, it is a big deal. In fact, I honestly prefer some of the poetry written by friends and people I know (in a blows everything else out of the water sort of way) to most of what I'd find in anthologies, literary journals or acclaimed chapbooks. A huge percent of it just doesn't speak to me. I like the idea of poets and poetry, and even the word poetry, more than I actually like it. All this to say, I am well aware that poetry is not my forte.
I want to say this too, for anyone who isn't familiar, the title and the last line are a play on a song by Audioslave called "I Am the Highway." It's on their first, self-titled album and though I was not a huge fan of that album, there were a handful of songs I really loved, and this one was particularly fitting for my life at the time, especially the winter immediately before that spring working OEE on Orcas Island. I had moved out of my parents' house, which felt more like an escape than a moving out, and was struggling through life in Seattle, and this song just embodied a lot of my sentiments at the time. No wonder some of the rhythm and the music seeped into my own attempt at poetry.
Currently Listening:
"I Am the Highway" - Audioslave - well, duh. It relates to the post so I put it on (and actually realized I had never transferred this album to my computer, though I did have a few songs). Crazy how you can go so many years without hearing a song and how seamlessly the words come back to mind.
Pearls and swine, bereft of me
Long and weary, my road has been
I was lost in the cities
Alone in the hills
No sorrow or pity
For leaving, I feel
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
Friends and liars don't wait for me
Cuz I'll get on all by myself
I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close
To you, I feel
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning
I am not your autumn moon
I am the night
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Friday, January 30, 2009
I Am Fried
This month I have made applying to colleges and scholarships my full-time job, and have actually spent more hours at it than at most jobs. I set myself a goal of 8 hours a day working on all of it, and I often went over and rarely took a day off. Yesterday I worked for fifteen hours with only a break for lunch. And now I feel totally fried.
In the last month, I've written 28 essays. If I have to write or look at another personal statement anytime soon I might spontaneously combust. I usually created each new essay by pulling from previous ones, and adjusting it for whatever particular purpose I needed, so it's not like they were all from scratch, but still. And many were, because the questions were specific and not covered elsewhere. I have reached the limit. This isn't even including all the short answer questions.
I don't even know how many forms I have filled out online and in print. I've been to the local office supply store almost every day, faxing transcript requests, copying required documents and letters of recommendation, which I coerced out of many sources, copying all my tax forms for financial aid offices and scholarship committees (I actually had my tax forms filled out before I got my W-2/etc in the mail). I don't even want to think how much paper I've gone through printing out application forms and required supplemental information. If the aforementioned office supply store was open right now Id probably be there b/ there's much I still need to copy today for the last batch of scholarship applications, and one of them needs everything scanned!
In the midst of all that I also planned and scheduled visits to three schools before I fly out, replete with interviews, sitting in on classes, campus tours and the like. All the other schools I'm applying to I've already visited. It's cool though, I'm sitting in on different types of classes at each place. At one, I'll sit in on a writing class, of course. The cool thing about that is that in conversing via email with the professor to set that up, one of the emails she sent me had a piece of a poem in it, a poem by Tony Hoagland. I don't consider myself very well-versed in poetry and I know that I don't know my poets all that well, so when I know one it says something, and I know Tony Hoagland. Not well, but his "Reasons to Survive November" is one of my favorite poems, so I thought that was a cool coincidence.
Speaking of, I'm taking a bit of a quick detour here to say I watched Into the Wild this weekend, and LOVED it. I got chills big-time when he started reciting Sharon Olds' poem "I Go Back to May, 1937" because that probably is my favorite poem. I first read it in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and have loved it ever since. It seems like now instead of music coincidences I'm having poetry coincidences. I can dig it.
Back on track. At another school I'm most likely sitting in on an interdisciplinary humanities course (yes!) and at another, a class on environmental health and social justice. I'm very glad that it'll be varied. I need variety.
But along with all of that came arranging all of it, arranging my travels, arranging whose couch to crash on at each place, getting bus tickets, etc, etc, etc. I actually thought I would also be able to plan a separate visit to Bellingham this month. I've visited Fairhaven before, twice actually (once in 2005, once in November) and had interviews and toured and all but I haven't gone to a class. So I wanted to try to squeeze that in, and some friends were considering going, but shit, I think I was crazy to even think I might be able to fit that in.
All of this while also doing everything to get ready for India - apply for India Visa, all the medical stuff, getting everything squared away with my apartment and with the person who will be watching it and doing my bookkeeping, getting supplies that I didn't have and probably more that I'm not even remembering anymore b/c I'm so fried. What I haven't done yet is pack.
Somehow I also did manage to have a pretty decent social life this month. I hung out a lot and had a surprise visit from my friend Heather in Seattle (though I also worked on stuff while she was here). I feel pretty good. I got everything done that I intended to. All my applications and their supplements are submitted. All the financial aid forms are filed (there were sooo many of those) and I applied to all the scholarships I originally set out to apply for. Except for the copying and scanning I mentioned, I am pretty much done. And that is a very good thing, b/c today's my last chance to mail stuff out before I take off on Monday morning. I just feel like everything is sort of squared away, like I made myself a goal and met it better than I might have thought.
That being said if I had to write another personal statement I might kill myself. And if I heard about another scholarship opportunity today, even if it sounded perfect and was for a million dollars, I might not bother. I am fried, completely and totally fried.
And so is my bank account - this shit is not cheap! Between all the application fees, the transcript requests (those get me every time, I've spent over $100 on that alone and luckily only one of my former schools charged for or I would be in the red), the College Board fees (for the financial aid profile and the sending of old SAT scores, which in most cases was optional and I opted for since my scores kicked major ass), all that copying and mailing and on and on and on, added up to over $600. Yikes.
And that is not to mention this is the same month as everything for India. I bought my plane ticket this month and paid a big chunk of the program fee, and paid for a domestic flight inside India as part of the itinerary, and then there were all the vaccinations, and the meds (!!!), and international insurance (funny I am insured overseas and not in America, go figure), and all my travel between here and San Fran where I'll fly out, and supplies. I think I have spent more money this month than in some (most?) years of my life. Seriously. The hope is that it will all be worth it.
Speaking of the meds, wow, what a trip. I was a bit worried about taking mefloquine for malaria - it's known to have serious emotional side effects and that's something I don't need, but the other option causes increased sun sensitivity, and I've already got that in spades. My doctor warned me that the Mef might cause weird dreams, and she wasn't kidding! I took my first one on Wednesday, and early that next morning I was in some weird state of lucid dreaming, I'm not entirely sure if I was asleep or awake, because I was dreaming, but also completely aware of my body. I think if I had ever tried acid, I would've been having acid flashbacks, it was totally weird. Kinda cool, but I'm glad it didn't happen again last night/this morning because there is just only so much I can take. If it happens once a week the night after taking the meds, I guess I'm cool with that. I don't think I'm having any emotional side effects, knock on wood. And with my current mental state of being totally fried, I feel I'd be ripe for those side effects if I was going to have them.
So that's that. My apartment is the messiest it's ever been, it looks like a hurricane hit my kitchen, and a tornado of paperwork laid waste to the living room, and another hurricane of boxes and packing material (from things I ordered) hit my bedroom. So I'd better get to cleaning that up, and to packing, at some point today after I finish my shit later this morning.
I'm leaving here in THREE DAYS. I can't believe it!
Currently listening:
"How to Save a Life" - The Fray - This song is on my computer b/c it's on the Grey's soundtrack. I don't really know The Fray, and not sure I really want to, but I do like this song a lot and play it often. I really like the piano, and the chorus. It's from the episode "Superstition" which I think is a really good one (I think Season 2 is just soooo good, probably my favorite) and during a pretty intense scene. Anyway while looking for the lyrics online, I found out this song is apparently written about a crack-addicted teen. I like that some of the songs on Grey's, like this one, have titles that could make sense in a medical sense too.
Here are the words:
Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life
In the last month, I've written 28 essays. If I have to write or look at another personal statement anytime soon I might spontaneously combust. I usually created each new essay by pulling from previous ones, and adjusting it for whatever particular purpose I needed, so it's not like they were all from scratch, but still. And many were, because the questions were specific and not covered elsewhere. I have reached the limit. This isn't even including all the short answer questions.
I don't even know how many forms I have filled out online and in print. I've been to the local office supply store almost every day, faxing transcript requests, copying required documents and letters of recommendation, which I coerced out of many sources, copying all my tax forms for financial aid offices and scholarship committees (I actually had my tax forms filled out before I got my W-2/etc in the mail). I don't even want to think how much paper I've gone through printing out application forms and required supplemental information. If the aforementioned office supply store was open right now Id probably be there b/ there's much I still need to copy today for the last batch of scholarship applications, and one of them needs everything scanned!
In the midst of all that I also planned and scheduled visits to three schools before I fly out, replete with interviews, sitting in on classes, campus tours and the like. All the other schools I'm applying to I've already visited. It's cool though, I'm sitting in on different types of classes at each place. At one, I'll sit in on a writing class, of course. The cool thing about that is that in conversing via email with the professor to set that up, one of the emails she sent me had a piece of a poem in it, a poem by Tony Hoagland. I don't consider myself very well-versed in poetry and I know that I don't know my poets all that well, so when I know one it says something, and I know Tony Hoagland. Not well, but his "Reasons to Survive November" is one of my favorite poems, so I thought that was a cool coincidence.
Speaking of, I'm taking a bit of a quick detour here to say I watched Into the Wild this weekend, and LOVED it. I got chills big-time when he started reciting Sharon Olds' poem "I Go Back to May, 1937" because that probably is my favorite poem. I first read it in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and have loved it ever since. It seems like now instead of music coincidences I'm having poetry coincidences. I can dig it.
Back on track. At another school I'm most likely sitting in on an interdisciplinary humanities course (yes!) and at another, a class on environmental health and social justice. I'm very glad that it'll be varied. I need variety.
But along with all of that came arranging all of it, arranging my travels, arranging whose couch to crash on at each place, getting bus tickets, etc, etc, etc. I actually thought I would also be able to plan a separate visit to Bellingham this month. I've visited Fairhaven before, twice actually (once in 2005, once in November) and had interviews and toured and all but I haven't gone to a class. So I wanted to try to squeeze that in, and some friends were considering going, but shit, I think I was crazy to even think I might be able to fit that in.
All of this while also doing everything to get ready for India - apply for India Visa, all the medical stuff, getting everything squared away with my apartment and with the person who will be watching it and doing my bookkeeping, getting supplies that I didn't have and probably more that I'm not even remembering anymore b/c I'm so fried. What I haven't done yet is pack.
Somehow I also did manage to have a pretty decent social life this month. I hung out a lot and had a surprise visit from my friend Heather in Seattle (though I also worked on stuff while she was here). I feel pretty good. I got everything done that I intended to. All my applications and their supplements are submitted. All the financial aid forms are filed (there were sooo many of those) and I applied to all the scholarships I originally set out to apply for. Except for the copying and scanning I mentioned, I am pretty much done. And that is a very good thing, b/c today's my last chance to mail stuff out before I take off on Monday morning. I just feel like everything is sort of squared away, like I made myself a goal and met it better than I might have thought.
That being said if I had to write another personal statement I might kill myself. And if I heard about another scholarship opportunity today, even if it sounded perfect and was for a million dollars, I might not bother. I am fried, completely and totally fried.
And so is my bank account - this shit is not cheap! Between all the application fees, the transcript requests (those get me every time, I've spent over $100 on that alone and luckily only one of my former schools charged for or I would be in the red), the College Board fees (for the financial aid profile and the sending of old SAT scores, which in most cases was optional and I opted for since my scores kicked major ass), all that copying and mailing and on and on and on, added up to over $600. Yikes.
And that is not to mention this is the same month as everything for India. I bought my plane ticket this month and paid a big chunk of the program fee, and paid for a domestic flight inside India as part of the itinerary, and then there were all the vaccinations, and the meds (!!!), and international insurance (funny I am insured overseas and not in America, go figure), and all my travel between here and San Fran where I'll fly out, and supplies. I think I have spent more money this month than in some (most?) years of my life. Seriously. The hope is that it will all be worth it.
Speaking of the meds, wow, what a trip. I was a bit worried about taking mefloquine for malaria - it's known to have serious emotional side effects and that's something I don't need, but the other option causes increased sun sensitivity, and I've already got that in spades. My doctor warned me that the Mef might cause weird dreams, and she wasn't kidding! I took my first one on Wednesday, and early that next morning I was in some weird state of lucid dreaming, I'm not entirely sure if I was asleep or awake, because I was dreaming, but also completely aware of my body. I think if I had ever tried acid, I would've been having acid flashbacks, it was totally weird. Kinda cool, but I'm glad it didn't happen again last night/this morning because there is just only so much I can take. If it happens once a week the night after taking the meds, I guess I'm cool with that. I don't think I'm having any emotional side effects, knock on wood. And with my current mental state of being totally fried, I feel I'd be ripe for those side effects if I was going to have them.
So that's that. My apartment is the messiest it's ever been, it looks like a hurricane hit my kitchen, and a tornado of paperwork laid waste to the living room, and another hurricane of boxes and packing material (from things I ordered) hit my bedroom. So I'd better get to cleaning that up, and to packing, at some point today after I finish my shit later this morning.
I'm leaving here in THREE DAYS. I can't believe it!
Currently listening:
"How to Save a Life" - The Fray - This song is on my computer b/c it's on the Grey's soundtrack. I don't really know The Fray, and not sure I really want to, but I do like this song a lot and play it often. I really like the piano, and the chorus. It's from the episode "Superstition" which I think is a really good one (I think Season 2 is just soooo good, probably my favorite) and during a pretty intense scene. Anyway while looking for the lyrics online, I found out this song is apparently written about a crack-addicted teen. I like that some of the songs on Grey's, like this one, have titles that could make sense in a medical sense too.
Here are the words:
Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life
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