i find i’m consistently in the habit of blogging after 3 a.m.
there are times when i’m uncertain
if the things i mask, i’m right to hide
if i tell you, can you face me?
there’s some things you’ve never held inside.
and i feel like you’re so happy;
i’m missing that “cheerful” gene.
it’s hard to always force a smile;
the laughter rarely hits my eyes.
but you don’t ever see that, do you?
if you’re not jaded, you don’t know
what it is to be missing
the part of you that needs to show;
the part that’s confident you’ll make it,
the part that’s confident there’s some plan,
that part of you you know can take it
if you lose it all again.
am i wrong to say i envy you?
your perfect happy life?
those “unfortunate” things are just bumps in the road,
not, for you, some twisting knife.
i don’t remember what it’s like
to just sit around and be,
without dwelling on the painful stuff
that makes me hurt,
but makes me me.
sometimes i can’t just hold it in;
it’s terrifying when the only people
who can understand the pain and sin
of your “past” life
are hundreds of miles away.
and home’s not your home,
just the place that you live,
and more than all that,
you know you would give
the world for the person who sees things the same,
who knows who you are, that there’s no one to blame
but yourself for the things you can’t
just push away,
but who takes all the things and the tons that they weigh
and reminds you that each night ends in day
and the nightmares and heartbreak that get in your way…
all that, you can just cast away.
there’s a place for we who don’t know it exists;
it may take us longer getter there than
those with clear sights,
but we know, all alone, on those deep, bitter nights,
that some day the abyss will come to a close,
and we’ll be there, we’ll be home;
just when this may come… who knows?
i know… there’s no real rhyme scheme and no flow. it’s 5 o’clock in the morning, i’m tired, i’m sad, i don’t feel well. forgive me.
Hopes dance best on bald men’s hair
This is, perhaps, one of the more over-read ee cummings poems, and yet I love it, because he has a beautiful way of capturing the spirit of anything which he describes such that anyone who tries might understand his emotion. I love ee cummings because, more often than not, you really have to work to get at what he’s expressing, but that exotic expressionism and neglect of rules of the English language are part of the appeal, as well as the beauty.
That said, this is one poem that has been on my mind much of late, and consequently I’m sharing it with you. If you haven’t read much ee cummings, I encourage you to, and do not only stick to the easy-to-read stuff, like the following. Challenge yourself a little.
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
