now i remember
By diana on Jun 4, 2011 | In capricious bloviations
I connect so little with the world around me. They’re out there and I’m in here and I can’t reach them.
Everybody wants something. Sex, laughs, support, money, someone to help them move boxes from one shitty apartment to another, someone to make them feel less alone.
Maybe the biggest reason on the “why people believe in God” list is to feel less alone. If there’s a God—or something out there—then it follows that each of us is part of everything else. None of us is truly alone, even when it feels that way.
Belief in God is its own altered state of consciousness, but it’s a drug I’m immune to.
So I drink. At least, I usually do. Like masturbation for the sexually deprived, it takes the edge off of life so I can deal with it. It doesn’t make life good, per se. It just cuts the bitter, the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
I haven’t had a drink in a while. I didn’t so much quit as just get tired of it. I didn’t feel like it any more. The problem is, sobriety reminds me why I drank in the first place.
I drank (drink?) for the same reason I ran 5-10 miles a day for 20 years, the same reason I pushed myself so hard in the martial arts, the same reason I almost always make jokes in lieu of blunt honesty. It’s how I dull what I can’t shut out.
This is not a cry for help. It isn’t a bid for pity. It’s me reaching for you. It’s okay if you can’t touch me. Just reach back. It’s enough.
d
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
- Stevie Smith
7 comments
Thanks for the poem, even if it was someone else’s instead of your own. But I don’t think I’ve read much poetry from you, if any, have I?
This one does have a harsh reality, of sorts. Is this Stevie Smith someone you know personally, or just the person who wrote the poem and you liked it? It does sound a little like something you would write, though.
Thanks for posting, Diana. I come to this site every day (sometimes more often) to see what you (or your readers) have posted. Keep up the good writing—-and thank you for you service!
Diana,
Yes. This. Thank you. You described it perfectly.
I see you. I can’t reach you, but I see you.
Dave
Thanks, Dave. I see you, too. ;)
Aunt Bann, Stevie Smith was an English poet. For more of her work, check here: http://www.poemhunter.com/stevie-smith/
She was brilliant.
d
Reaching out instead of giving up is too difficult a step for many. I’m very far away in kilometers, but I think I’m close in states of mind.
I liked this one:
http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1264215&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=83d4c1cd32
What a beautiful poem. Thanks for that, Mila!
…in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
d
Existence is a bitch, ain’t it? Unless you learn to live in the moment, that is, which is tougher to do as an adult than as a child.
When we were children, enjoying life was intuitive. We didn’t have to work at it. We just were and effortlessly drifted from one moment to the next.
As adults, though, we often have to make an extra effort–planning our daily activities with the precision of a military operation–to actually revel in our being. And then we’re surprised and dumbfounded when we don’t.
So, throw out the plan. Stop, breathe deeply, and just be. You might also want to work on liking yourself as well. Learn these tricks now, because existence only gets worse when you don’t have the distractions of work, school, children, etc filling your time for you and you’re just left with yourself.
That was brilliant, Peachy. I miss you deeply, my friend.
And YES.
d
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