Thursday, April 9, 2009

Dots Speak Louder

I'm almost certain residual anger stems from all of the unsaid thoughts or feelings we keep inside.  The thoughts and feelings of which we initially decided to keep to ourselves in the hopes of remaining uninvolved from any future unpleasantry. Why is it easier to keep it all to ourselves instead of saying what we want and need to? Deep down I know my excuse is because it's just not worth it. I'm an advocate for confrontation, I believe it's necessary in any relationship, if you can't confront each other then communication falls by the wayside. That's another funny thing, you're supposed to communicate in order to have a successful relationship but unfortunately we all seem to have different definitions for the term. Ultimately in these situations, I choose my battles.  Only the relationships that matter to me have witnessed confrontation because quite simply, I won't fight for you if it's not worth it, if you're not worth it. The scary thing about being brutally honest with someone you care about is that the result can come to one of two conclusions: either your relationship strengthens or it just has to end. 

In poetry it is most important to show the story and not to tell it. Anyone can write a poem if all they do is throw flowery metaphors in with some cliched emotion. The difficulty comes when we forget how to feel. The trick is to texturize it, to engage the senses to allow the reader to see the picture that each carefully chosen word helps to depict. For example, I can tell you about the red chair or I can show you the red chair, what it feels like to sit in, the uneven back leg that wobbles with shifted weight, the support it unexpectedly provides. Telling you what the red chair looks like is insignificant. The bottom line is that we have to cut out all the bullshit in order to be relevant but that concept is easier said than done. We focus too much on drawing the lines that connect the dots when in reality, the dots speak louder. In poetry and in life, it's so much easier to fill the space with flowery metaphors, to walk around other people's feelings, to keep things to ourselves. But in any case, not everyone deserves to be shown the red chair. 

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