Soliloquy
a poem i wrote this week instead of, in turning of the tables style, cussing out a veteran elder of my church:
Old storyteller, am I like you?
Unstoppable, artful rambling
Each pause purpose fully drawn out
Each word rehearsed
Performed
Acted out
Retreating step by intentioned step
Into darkness
Into solitude
Into soliloquy
Into the black separation that can only be named Hell
Is your audience there?
I thought I was human
I thought I was present
I thought you saw me
Then, I was no more
Like a cardboard seat filler, you froze me in time
A smile nailed to my bleeding, wounded face
Where did I go when you defaced me?
The pain the tension the loss the death
Of not existing
Too much
Too much
My persistent frown rips both my flesh and your painted smile from my face
And I shine through the mask
Is the light too much?
Is my presence too much?
Is there room for me in your soliloquy?
I speak
vulnerability
unguarded
handing me to your rough hands
And
As any cardboard seat filler
I am unheard
Unknown
Unpresent
Unalive
Crushed, folded, put away, replaced with a kinder audience
I break free from the coffin you’d put me in
The soliloquy continues
And, through my private tears, mine does too.
2 comments:
yeah...in this case, by vetran, i meant that he isn't an elder now - in fact, he's moved to a hick town in eastern washington and is not a member of my church anymore.
here's how i think it works. He's faced with the question, "I'm important because ____________. Because I'm _____________ therefore I'm secure." These are blanks we filled in at my Sabbath class.
I wrote, "I'm important because I'm in demand. Because I am wanted, therefore I'm secure."
Maybe the elder's response is, "I'm important because I am knowledgable and my wisdom is heeded. Because I am never wrong and those around me benefit from my correction, therefore I am secure."
He is unable to face sacred moments because he does not understand (as most of us don't) that we are important, as a PAWS add suggests of cats and dogs, because of who owns us. He controls situations to secure his fragile security and cannot allow for the other to be in his presence because this introduces the unknown and uncontrollable.
At least this is the conclusion i'm mulling over as i process my own failure in that interaction.
a quote from a children's book that applies and that we all need to hear:
a princess has run away from home and even been party to defamation and injury to the king. when she returns home, she no longer sees herself as his and he responds, "Ah my child, you may have acted like them, but you are not one of them. You are mine and you will never be happy until you accept both the privilege and responsibility that goes with belonging to me."
sitting in the presence of that statement has proved the best lens for my recent mission trip and for that interaction.
Your beginning is hazy cloud of flatulant revenge and self-indulgent hatred. Beauty seldom arises from the exploitation of the ugliness of another. Like begets like in this respect - and especially where there is no opportunity for meaningful apologetic. You are in bad taste. On the other hand, your conclusion is a good extension of aesthetic judgment, which sets each bauble most carefully upon its proper cushion.
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