you will not remember me
I just stumbled over the poetry of a teacher I had. I fell in love with not only the content, but the imagery and the word choice, but it made me sad as well, and I felt it immediately. His writing was so eloquent, so hypnotic and vivid with sounds and smells and funny observations, and I realized I wanted to be written about. He seemed to have written about a few various ladyfriends, and I couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy. This man is 13 years older than me and I found myself almost wanting to be a notch on his belt of experience. I wanted to be encapsulated within a few verses about my hair or my odd colored eyes or something quirky and curious about me. I want to be written about. I couldn't help but feel like I would be eons more interesting and important if I meant something enough to him to be captured in words forever. There is a poem written I've read once, although for some reason I can't think of the name or who wrote it, and it meditates on the thought of how selfish it is to take someone and immortalize them in a poem forever, effectively caging them in a vision you had one day sparked by the flip of one's hair or the way the sun hit the side of their cheek so perfectly that a poem was born. I don't care. I want to be weaved into a poem, to be kept forever. I don't think there is anything better. Maybe what I really want to be so talented and well versed in writing that I won't need to rely on someone else to immortalize me, but whatever. I read this guy's poetry and I was floored. I died and I felt such a painful wishing to be written about and documented as beautifully and sophisticated and as vividly as he could do so. Or maybe it's just that he is unbelievably wonderful and I can't wrap my head around how intelligent he is in so many ways.
I'm feeling very down on myself these days. Life is feeling mundane and exhausted in general, and I feel this unnatural and angry desire to flip out on those around me every day. I have been so snappy and annoyed, and I am feeling really frustrated in general about the inpending unyielding grasp of grownup-hood. I have about 20 books I want to read, 10 albums I want to listen to, I want to buy everything interesting I see, I want to be in a different country, I want to feel unbelievably beautiful and wanted by everyone, and I wish my current plans for the future would satisfy me. I can't help but feel like in 3 years I will be a tool of car payments and dressy casual attire. The worst part of this observation is that the life I'm living now is not nearly amazing or free enough for me to have anything tool-ish to be afraid to surrender to. I sell clothing to people and attempt to have epic nights with friends overlooking bodies of water while sipping iced tea from major retail companies that shit on their thousands of underage and underpaid employees. I try to be enlightened about atrocious things going on in the world and I try to have my opinion and swear I'll give money someday, when I have it, and yet I too am a slave to the unbeatable deals at K-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and everything that makes me the overpriveleged, ignorant, embarassing, know-it-all, blind American. I feel uneasy and uncomfortable almost every day. I hate the mundane and routine quality my life has, and yet I am terrified of dropping the life I've been given and actually trying my character in a new place. All I am good at is complaining. I say teaching will be great because I can live my passion for kids and education and then I can live my dreams in the summer times and vacations, but let's be realistic. I will drown under bills and payments for nice things that will buffer my hatred for what I haven't done and my sadness for all the lives I haven't lived. I will never have anything published, I will never be well known for anything I accomplish. I will, however, probably own a nice car and have an extensive library of books I haven't read yet. As for now, I will continue to buy weird jewelry and make t-shirts with obscure references to bands and continue to write obscure journal entries and have obscure lyrics and lines of poetry as titles to try and add some interesting qualities to my embarassingly plain and boring self.
It is for these reasons, among others, that I am really afraid that I will die young. There are so many things I need to do.
Oh, and this sentence is dedicated to Elvis Costello.
I'm feeling very down on myself these days. Life is feeling mundane and exhausted in general, and I feel this unnatural and angry desire to flip out on those around me every day. I have been so snappy and annoyed, and I am feeling really frustrated in general about the inpending unyielding grasp of grownup-hood. I have about 20 books I want to read, 10 albums I want to listen to, I want to buy everything interesting I see, I want to be in a different country, I want to feel unbelievably beautiful and wanted by everyone, and I wish my current plans for the future would satisfy me. I can't help but feel like in 3 years I will be a tool of car payments and dressy casual attire. The worst part of this observation is that the life I'm living now is not nearly amazing or free enough for me to have anything tool-ish to be afraid to surrender to. I sell clothing to people and attempt to have epic nights with friends overlooking bodies of water while sipping iced tea from major retail companies that shit on their thousands of underage and underpaid employees. I try to be enlightened about atrocious things going on in the world and I try to have my opinion and swear I'll give money someday, when I have it, and yet I too am a slave to the unbeatable deals at K-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and everything that makes me the overpriveleged, ignorant, embarassing, know-it-all, blind American. I feel uneasy and uncomfortable almost every day. I hate the mundane and routine quality my life has, and yet I am terrified of dropping the life I've been given and actually trying my character in a new place. All I am good at is complaining. I say teaching will be great because I can live my passion for kids and education and then I can live my dreams in the summer times and vacations, but let's be realistic. I will drown under bills and payments for nice things that will buffer my hatred for what I haven't done and my sadness for all the lives I haven't lived. I will never have anything published, I will never be well known for anything I accomplish. I will, however, probably own a nice car and have an extensive library of books I haven't read yet. As for now, I will continue to buy weird jewelry and make t-shirts with obscure references to bands and continue to write obscure journal entries and have obscure lyrics and lines of poetry as titles to try and add some interesting qualities to my embarassingly plain and boring self.
It is for these reasons, among others, that I am really afraid that I will die young. There are so many things I need to do.
Oh, and this sentence is dedicated to Elvis Costello.