Tuesday, January 28, 2014

The Feng Shui of Bachelorhood


According to my mother, women judge the depth of a man’s readiness for a relationship on the arrangement of his furniture. (And other things, of course.) The specifics of her belief have always been conveyed to me regarding the placement of my bed. She feels that a bed placed in a corner suggests to a woman that he’s not ready for an equal partnership. In such a situation, one partner always has to get in first/last. On the other hand, she is of the opinion that if the aforementioned bed is placed in the center of the wall with access on both sides, it suggests the man is ready to actually share that bed with someone. In her world, women pay attention to this kind of thing. Since she’s a woman and apparently pays attention to bed placement, I assume there must be other women who share this perspective.
She probably has a point. I have a friend in his early twenties who is an amazing cook with a rather Spartan apartment. While hanging out with him and eating over a time or two, he has one extremely noticeable piece of furniture lacking. He doesn’t have a kitchen table of any kind. Honestly, he doesn’t really have room for one, but even one he could put away in a closet when it wasn’t needed would, in my opinion, be a good idea. It seems to me that in a decent search to end his bachelorhood, this is something a woman might notice.
When I describe him as an amazing cook, I honestly think his cooking good enough to woo any decent woman with. He’s a bigger guy and a computer programmer, but reasonably active, and his gourmet is so good that he could probably land a drop dead gorgeous girl, just with the food. He has other merits as well, but I can’t emphasize enough the quality of his meals.
I find myself wondering, however, if that noticeable lack of a dining table wouldn’t hamper his cause were he actually trying to woo a woman worthy of him. (Drop dead gorgeous or otherwise, I realize looks aren't everything). Not because a woman worthy of him wouldn’t overlook something “small” like that, but due to the impression he might be giving off. Arguably a man who doesn't even own a kitchen table could be perceived as not quite ready for the rigors of sharing adult life with a partner. This is assuming my mom’s idea of the feng shui of bachelorhood is accurate.
Thanks to my education in English Literature and rhetoric, I pay a lot of attention to what small things like clothing, furniture, et cetera say about people, so this all may just be the result of me being hyper-observant.
So, I’m curious. Ladies, what do you think about the Feng Shui of Bachelorhood? Does the idea have merit, or is it ridiculous?

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Untitled


I always did enjoy derailing your thoughts,
spinning them round with words
til up was down and the stars
traded place with Earth
and galaxies idled by
as your mind wandered
lost on the wake of supernovas.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Chase the Storm

If I could take the rainbows
Shining in the lights upon the snow
I'd put them in a ring for you
I wouldn't hesitate
Why wait
I'm tired of being patient
Why wait?

While we're still young
While our hearts still beat fast
and our blood's still warm
Let's chase the storm
Let's chase the storm.

I want to love you
Like we're in one of those movies
Where it's raining lace
You're a magnet
For a thousand kisses
There's no reason why we should wait.

While we're still young
While our hearts still beat fast
and our blood's still warm
Let's chase the storm
Let's chase the storm.


Copyright 2014

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Tar Baby


Reach in
deep into the sap of me
until you find a piece of amber
fossilized by the heat seeping off
the magma of unerupted fury
that runs beneath the silent, tectonic pressure
of stress-taut muscles and fear clenched teeth.

Reach in 
until your arms are lost 
up to the elbows
in my darkest self and strangest secrets.

Reach in 
and close your eyes
until you know me without them.
Sight will only blind you 
when you're seeking in the dark.

Reach in.
Burn yourself on the worst of me,
then heal,
and never let me go.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Sacrifice


You can have my heart.
I'll give it all away.
You can have your freedom
to wear someone else's chains.
I don't have to have you
to love you like I do.
I will watch as you move on, dear,
if that's the road that calls to you.

I'm the quiet, watching one,
the pillar you can lean on
when the world knocks you off your feet.
And I will be, indefinitely,
a foundation to support you,
but a foundation is hard to see.

I've always been the patient one.
Maybe that's why I'm still waiting,
but I have so much to give someone
who isn't in a hurry.
I'd rather you took the time 
to know my darknesses, dance my light,
waltz around my yin and yang,
and love me for both the black and white.

For once I want to be the chosen.
When it comes time for you to choose
don't leave me the way you always do,
cracked but not quite broken.
For once I want to be the chosen.
When it comes time for you to choose,
choose me for the rooftops, the dreams come true.
Choose me for loving you enough to let you go,
the first time and the second.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Windmill #3: Honesty


Being honest with ourselves may be one of the most difficult tasks we’ll ever face. We shroud the truth in layer after layer of obscuring false trails, afraid to look it in the eye. Our truth is a Gorgon, we fear, and in that fear we are already petrified.

I see it, buried in the spaces between words and lines as a friend spills out line after line of truly personal details. There is an edifice built around everything she is not saying, a vault where the reality of the situation is tucked away. That truth, the one buried, is ultimately empowering, but all the signs on the walls of this monument say, “Here Be Dragons,” “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” The signs are lies penned in fear and the stone walls of this cairn is only a house of cards.

I see it in my own self-reflection. The truth is a mountain, its peak veiled in clouds and I carve passes to either side, so close to reality that it’s hard to say I’m not on the mountain. But I don’t climb. I don’t take pick and piton and rope and set out to surmount my trepidation. How much easier to walk the paths along the gentle slopes at the base.

This mountain isn’t just a metaphor. It is Mount Fuji, the mountain I stared at from my apartment balcony for a year and never ventured to. I was afraid of it. Not the lightning storms that killed four that summer as they attempted what I did not. I was afraid of the aches and pains and too-taut muscles of my body and the strain I might put on them. The same fear I used as an excuse to avoid a military career. The excuse I use to avoid taking up running for exercise. I’ve always been one who claimed I didn’t have fears. It isn’t true. The truth is I have many fears and I’ve been afraid to face them. If I face my fears, I might be ashamed by them. I am afraid I will let myself down.

Fear is exhausting. It’s fatiguing. It wraps us up in a safe little word and we’re so excited to be sheltered that we don’t know that our breath is constricted, that our chest rises and falls, but so, so shallowly.

What amazes me most about this is how much simpler the truth makes things. How unfettered we are when we accept the truth and weed out all the crap that hides it.

What amazes me is that I’ve used so much flowery, vague language and metaphor and kept myself from truly talking about what I actually want to explore. This one’s going to take a while.

Monday, December 16, 2013

The War - M0RG4N


I haven't fallen in love in ages
think it's due to this war that wages
between my too complacent present
and my discontented past.

I've been too caught up in ghosts
with diamonds on their fingers
you'd think they'd start to fade in time
but something lingers, something always lingers.

I never saw myself here
wearing out familiar trails
on a too familiar map
I never saw myself here
walking down these worn out roads
with no company but my own

My heart's all out of shape these days
all hope and good intentions
but no real exercise.
My heart's all out of practice
and I'm too tired to go the distance
to do more than fantasize

I never saw myself here
wearing out familiar trails
on a too familiar map
I never saw myself here
walking down these worn out roads
with no company but my own

I haven't fallen in love in ages
think it's due to this war that wages
on and on and on and on
between my present and my past