1 + 0

This one’s so personal, I’m not even sure why I’m posting it. It’s kind of a letter to someone I used to know, and also an attempt for me to shake some chains that have been weighing me for some time. I’m going to read it at the coffee shop in an attempt to maybe exercise the demons once and for all.

I’d like to take this opportunity (a post that’s probably way to personal to actually apply to anyone) to explain a little bit about why I do the slam poetry thing, or the rhyme thing in most of my writing. I was talking to one of my friends, and fellow amateur writers, about poetry and slam poetry, and he told me that while he respected the literary prowess it took to write poetry and its various forms, he didn’t see it impacting much social change. He said that most of the people that are exposed to that material already are fairly enlightened individuals and don’t really gain anything, but enjoyment, from the experience.
It shook me a little. I had been working pretty tirelessly on perfecting this new-found love affair I was having with rhyme and he had pretty much trounced all over it. The worst part about it was that, all in all, he was pretty much right. However, I also remembered why I had started this love affair with rhyme; because it catches your brain. Good rhyme is like a roller coaster that drags your inner monologue at whatever pace it wants, twisting and turning, it takes the reader along for a ride. Then when you start using analogies and simile’s, you start finding different directions to come at things; you start to force people to look at things a little differently.
It may seem like a jump, but the brain is a neural network, and it operates as such. I think, in order to change anyone’s mind, they have to feel like they’ve done it on their own. Poetry tries to take you on a ride you can’t get off, through the landscape of some emotion or goal, and when it does its job, it plops you down safely where ever your mind found its way to. It may give you the paints, but good poetry relies on the reader/listener to paint the final picture. That’s why I worry no one will get the following post; because it’s really just a photograph. One I’m trying to burn.
Anyway, thanks for reading, feel free to leave your thoughts on this, or anything else I’ve done.

It wasn’t me, it was you
it took me a while to realize it, but it’s true
and it’s kind of hard to say even now, but I have to
because I even bent the rules of nature for you
I made one plus zero equal two and now there’s not much left of me
but it doesn’t seem to be bothering you
you were my dream come true, no lie
I tried to do everything right, even goodbye
but I’ve got to set this record straight
or it might skip and I’ll be forced to retrace
this awful track I’ve been stuck in
this pointless circle I keep runnin’
when every night brings dreams worse than nightmares
highway screams and blank stares,
overplayed scenes and no one cares
because we all know life and love never play fair
so what in God’s name were we doing there?
up downtown streets with our eyes shut in the dark
stealing kisses on sidewalks, making love in the park
trying to build lives out of the ones we tore apart
I remember watching you sleep like a moment that easily passed as art
and I towed the line, from the nape of your neck, to the base of your spine
racing rhythmic melodies we only sing from time to time
digging deeper to see what we might find
this paradise in a precociously periodic peace of mind
I heard the words of your spirit and I sang
every
line
then it occurred to me, as a matter of self esteem,
that mine wasn’t the only song you sing
this castle we built was love, but there was one too many kings
and those shadows we hid in didn’t conceal a thing
but I kept hanging on, partly because I couldn’t stand to be wrong
and partly because love might be gone, but lust is still strong
and what’s so bad about it if we both play along
but I think somewhere, even I knew, that couldn’t last long
and that dream come true turned nightmarish again
because no matter how much I loved you, you still loved him
and that’s a war that only you win,
and I guess that in the end you did win,
because, for some reason, I still wonder what might’ve been
and I still have dreams of being under your skin
and I tore myself asunder again and again
searching out reasons from beginning to end
interrogating strangers and alienating friends
all to understand the unequivocal truth on which I had never planned
that you had squandered your right to be meant for me
and somehow you had known it before me
I started catching on when the kisses weren’t so strong
you stopped closing your eyes, and they never lasted as long
I should’ve known then, hell, our kisses were like books
with passion filled chapters, and we were constant crooks
stealing them like looks over the bar, where ever you ended up
laughing at his jokes as you refill his cup
You see I still wonder if I ran through your head
in the morning, when you woke up in his bed
and I guess I don’t really mind that you lied
I wasn’t really ready to let go either, at the time
what hurts is that you knew it was you who let love go
but watched me hang for the crime
I like to say that I’ve come to terms with the beast love became
that I’ve found some sort of salvation in finding a place for blame
but one plus zero always equals one and blame or no blame,
alone, pretty much always feels the same

~ by Jay-Will on September 11, 2008.