I have a knack of always beating the rush to a line, but I never really checked to see if I was actually just holding up the line and making it longer.
…Nah. That’s impossible.
A lady in a wheelchair asked me “are you using this chair?” A part of me wanted to say, “don’t you already have a seat?” But the bigger part of me just stammered and shook my head; more so in confusion than in reply. She towed the wooden chair across the tile floor of the coffee shop, turning heads and whatnot, and then plopped it in front of a cushy armchair in the corner. She neither sat in the wooden chair, nor the cushy armchair. She was waiting for a friend, which cleared up my confusion about someone chair-bound asking for a chair, but when her friend came, she sat in the cushy armchair and the wooden chair just stood there, staring at them. After a few minutes the woman in the cushy armchair set her purse down on the wooden chair. I was still confused as to why the chair had been brought over, but at least it had a purpose, so I got back to work.
The Mona Lisa is really beyond art at this point. It’s kind of turned into a monster, or rather, turned the common viewer of art into a monster. You can’t even see the Mona Lisa anymore because it’s behind so much glass, and you can’t even take a picture of it because they’ve put some sort of anti-picture technology in the glass… that is to say if you can even get a decent view of it and manage to hold the camera still amongst all the elbows that are bumping into your elbows. There is a huge crowd around the Mona Lisa fighting their way to look at her that she has to be put behind bars in order to be kept safe. That isn’t art. She can’t even be seen anymore. How is that art? Or at least, now she isn’t even being used for her intended purpose, or being seen in the same way the artist imagined. Other painting in the Louvre you can just go up to and even touch if no one is looking, but the Mona Lisa is trapped; with an armed guard even! Now she’s a freak show–some sort of sick performance piece. People don’t want to take the time to appreciate her anymore, they just want to get a glimpse of her just to say they have.
There was some group that showed up in my facebook newsfeed called “I’m not creepy, I just have a really good memory.” Thinking about it for a minute, how can you say you’re not creepy? I know on occasion I have pointed out details to people from years in the past, and people find it kind of creepy that I can remember such randomly specific details. To me it’s not creepy, but to others it might be. But one thing I can’t do is tell that person that it’s not creepy; then I’d just be asking them to lie to themselves. I can’t tell someone that reciting 100 digits of pi makes me smart, I can’t tell someone that my jokes are funny, and I can’t tell someone that giving them flowers is romantic. You do what you do, but you can’t tell other people what you do; it’s up to them to see it, and it’s up to you to show them.
To Know
The moment.
The moment of clarity.
The severity,
a rarity
that stings
and rings
with things
you can’t describe,
but only feel
and know
—you just know—
what will happen,
and that you can’t
stop it
no matter how hard you try.
For better or for worse,
you lie to yourself
and say
I see the light;
another way.
I will fight!
Yet, you know.
You just know
that you’re only distracting yourself,
and falling back
into the very same moment
of clarity
which trapped you before,
and you know,
you just know
that you’ve been here before—
you’ve seen it,
you’ve felt it,
and now it is here
and is all you can see,
and you know,
you just know
it is all that can be,
and you slip
—Oh, you slip—
and you fall
to your knees
and say, If only
that moment of clarity…
hadn’t shown itself,
hadn’t spoken to me,
hadn’t consumed
then until now
in the wink of an eye,
so that months of inaction
have rolled on by
with nothing
more than the words
“Why couldn’t I…”
But you knew.
You just knew
when your future
appeared
that it would hold you,
entrance you
with its mysterious face,
so you watched
and you listened,
running in place,
when all it would take
to avoid that path
is to speak out
and say “No,
this can’t pass!
That isn’t my fate!”
…but you couldn’t,
you wouldn’t
want to leave it to chance;
take a risk
give her a kiss,
when at that moment’s glance
you cannot be together,
but she’s still in your life,
and to you that’s still better
than ‘maybe’ or ‘might,’
and you want nothing more
than to cherish that moment,
to keep what you can,
to hold onto the light;
even if only
a flash in the pan.
When the future finds you
and you don’t agree,
it takes all that you have
to let go of that moment,
and what used to be,
and accept the tears of its clarity.
allmostrelevant 