One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop

The Complete Poems 1927-1979

The stench of stew

There is always something to say, but along with the difficulty of where to begin, there is never the right words - never quite the gift of easily distilled matter, or of proper discipline with which to articulate things with the exactness that the topic deserves. That, and the fact that it is tricky business negating through thoughts you feel you haven't any right to talk about, so aware are you of (un)fairness, and of the irony of wanting even to try to shake its brand of consciousness. 

Wordy, I know. I feel as though I must hover eternally and without mercy in the twilight of words and life. 

How is it possible? How, truly, do we live with ourselves breathing such hypocrisy, such inequality that is life? Is it innate, this infuriating charateristic of simultaneous antagonistic desires that drives you out of your mind - is it human?

There isn't any sense of basic courtesy I still credit you with having, no cursory level of respect I deeply and instinctively maintain for you. It's not surprising, I suppose, just terribly hurtful. And rather unpleasant, admittedly, to find myself so wrong about it, about you. I'm upset with you for being able to turn it on or off at will - what sort of person is that way? - and more upset with me for caring. I guess the clincher is the calm of the front row seats, and the mess that goes on behind, uncovered rather uncerimoniously, I might add.

And yet, there's hardly anything incredulous, so intricately entwined, after all, with the person that you are, and my very contention, as it were. But then, perhaps I deserve it.

It cuts all the same.

I know all the reasons, all the justifications. I know them all too well because I cannot help but plough through them ruthlessly. I even take your side, so twisted is my ability to self-convince, it is a cruel affliction.

Still, it cuts.

Perhaps the more with the realization I don't automatically know how to withdraw care.

And then, cursed dawnings: the crazy fear of repetition. 

Jaded

For the first time in my life, I think I'm beginning to experience what it feels like not to care. Not in a spiteful, malicious way, but simply just being coolly non-pulsed. It is strange and freeing, this indifference, though the girl who always gave too much of a damn does raise her flags of caution every now and again to remind me how I will regret becoming the person I am becoming.