Cliche

"Oh, that's soooo cliche (roll eyes)"

I have spent the past week pouring over the thesaurus and racking my brain to think of different ways to say "wish upon a star" and then I stopped. Why do I feel the need to do this? In the poem that presented this issue, the speaker was saying that this person took her wishes and destroyed them. I believe the speaker is also implying that what was once simple, sweet, and without complication was destroyed by this person. If "wish upon a star" was "ruminate on the brightly lit spherical orb in the night sky", it wouldn't carry the same impact, the same meaning.

Cliches are not our enemy - why do we treat them as such? Yes, as wordsmiths, we challenge ourselves to reach above the cliche, to find the words that say "it" better - but sometimes the simple and familiar says it all. It says more than all. I would really like to know your thoughts on this. . . .

And to the writer of the poem I was speaking of - I wouldn't change "wish upon a star" to anything. It's perfect.

My Own Chaos

"Out of Chaos, Brilliant Stars are Born"

Before a great vision can become reality there may be difficulty. Before a person begins a great endeavor, they may encounter chaos. As a new plant breaks the ground with difficulty, foreshadowing the huge tree, so must we sometimes push against difficulty in bringing forth our dreams.

My head feels cold, leaden, like the granite that will eventually sit about it. The tiniest of stray rays of sunlight send soiled daggers into my head until I finally lock myself in my bathroom where not light can penetrate. The bowling ball that now passes for my head is just as dense - no meaningful thought can form, nothing but shrieks of pain come forth from my pen. And the inadequate pencil-thin stick that my bowling ball head teeters upon, bows out to both sides in the middle from the shear exhaustion of holding up such a dead weight. Tylenol gives no relief, ibuprofen may cause me to draw my last breath, and since I am trying to avoid that sort of Shakespearean ending, I sit here in my empty bathtub, hiding from light and the everyday noise of my family.

What does this have to do with my poetry? What was I talking about?

A Piece of Soul

This tattoo is on my husband's forearm, it was completed by Tony Adamson - and was a testament to my husband accepting Christ in his life.

Tattooing is an art, do not be mistaken - to watch Tony (my tattoo artist) freehand a piece of art onto ever shifting skin is fascinating to say the least. The tattoos I choose, and my husband chooses all have significant meanings to them - but why let many small needles impale my skin repeatedly for several hours to make a lifetime statement? For me, enduring that few hours of pain compared to the lifetime I have had to deal with it helps me remember how proud I am to be alive, the pain reminds me I am alive and since I am not shy about what the tat stands for, perhaps it can inspire someone else. The rose down my spine stands for my fight with bipolar disorder and suicidal ideations; the purple butterfly is the me who is emerging from under all the fat after having the gastric bypass; the cross with the rose stands for my fight with death (the death who took my parents early). They remind me that in all things beauty can prevail.

So that is all fine and dandy - but how does that effect my poetry? Its the same desire for expression that inspires me to be ink to skin as does inspire me to put pen to paper. But I have also been inspired by watching Tony, the detail with which he inks someone. He understands the concept, he puts a little piece of his soul into the painting and the customer is merely living canvas. How can one not be inspired by this under appreciated art form?

I Am Deeply Sorry

As I wrote in a previous posting, my doctor increased my lithium to stabilize my emotions - problem is that it has caused so very bad side effects. Good news is I am not numb, but my skin is crawling, I am dizzy, and perpetually nauseous - I feel like I am pregnant all over again (trust me I am not). My doctor suggested I not drive until the side effects dye down and since I live in Meridian, I was unable to get to class tonight. I am truly upset about this as I wanted to workshop my poetry and hear other people's poetry. I have read all of the poems and enjoyed them greatly, but I think you get more from them, more understanding when you hear them read.

Again, I am deeply sorry about missing tonight - my doctor says that all this should pass by the end of the week.

Truth

Obviously I am not shy about who I am and where I come from. I will disclose to people anything good or bad about me because my experiences may help other people who don't feel comfortable because they think everyone will judge them. So he is another "probably-more-than-you-wanted-to-know" detail about me:

I am bipolar, like my daughter. Of course, I had it first and it was a gene passed down from me to her - but childhood bipolar disorder is vastly different than adult bipolar disorder, but anyway. Since I had the gastric bypass last year, my bipolar has been out of control. I have been on 20 different medications in the past year, and in July I finally got to a point where I was ok - not great, but ok. The tattoo on the front of my blog, at the bottom, is actually a symbol of the fight I have with my disease, as I see it. The rose is nearly perfect, but all of the tribal stuff winds around the rose, piercing it in various places and causing it to bleed.

Well now I am not ok again. My doctor has asked that I not work for 3 weeks to let the med changes take effect so I don't throw a chair out their window (no worries at school, school is my refuge, even though I can't afford the books, its MY place where problems [except parking] can't penetrate). But I have told you all this so I can get to my point - WHEN DOES IT END??? I had the bypass for a better quality of life, but now I am taking so many meds and what not, soon I will be a blithering idiot unable to think abstractly. I have children though, and a husband who SAYS he needs me - so am I to become the blithering idiot incapable of extraneous thought for them? Or do I stop this medication quest and let them lock me up forever after they find me naked in a tree screaming at the top of my lungs that today's society is rude and stupid?! (Just for clarification, I am NOT schizophrenic - I know little green men are not coming out of people's ears to destroy me, do YOU know that??) I don't know if increasing my medications will kill what little creativity is left in me, but what if it does? It has already been about 6 years since I have written poetry productively, I want to write, I love writing, it was always the one thing that was special about me. Now, I am becoming the crazy lady at the end of the block watering the pavement.

You'll visit me in the looney bin won't you???

Sleep

I actually slept last night. I don't know why last night was any different from any other sleepless night. My neck was still having spasms and was hurting greatly like it is now, but I was so exhausted that I guess my mind shut down my body for the night. Sleep is an elusive creature to me, comes and goes, weaving in and out of my nights like a mosquito dancing in and out of a hole in the screen until it is finally squashed by the closing of the window. I watch my dogs and how easily and deep they sleep - lay down and, BOOM, they are sleeping. Have you ever wondered if dogs dream? My daughters basset hound, Lulu, who barely has a brain (and I wonder about that at times) for instance, do you think she dreams about lakes, rivers and rabbits? Even though she has never seen any of those things? Or maybe she dreams of bones, cans of food, Kong's, and billiard balls - and her nightmares could consist of my aunts 2 big dogs coming at her. At night I watch my children sleep too. They look so angelic - to bad that doesn't transcend the light of day. My oldest daughter, who, like me, is bipolar, takes medication to get to sleep - but her sleep is not a restless synthetic sleep, it's a sleep that needs unlocking - like a door needs a key. Once she is asleep though, she doesn't move around much, every once in a while her lips will part as if she is speaking to someone or something. My youngest daughter who is 6 is still occasionally has night time accidents still has baby lips. If you ever watch a baby sleep their lips partted and pursed, like inverted angels wings. We don't know what causes the accidents, she says she has not had any bad dreams but that makes me question something too. Why are dreams elusive? Why do some dreams about frozen waffles, frogs and giant ice cream cones stick out in our minds so we can recall them, and the ones that really matter; the ones where a loved one crosses heavens threshold to visit us, and remind us we are loved; or the ones that fortell of some wonderful fortune in the future. Does our mind think we can't handle such things? I want to see my mom again and I want to remember it, but alas, I finally find sleep to be chased through Oz by a giant tube of toothpaste.

Poetry and Art

Tonight as I was sitting in my Art 100 class, the instructor asked "what is art?" And then she distinguished the question more by saying that because poetry, fiction and music are all art forms as well, her question was more specifically "what is visual art?" The mention of poetry made me start questioning this thought of calling my own poetry "art". Am I laying words to paper for the purpose of creating an art form? Do I intend for my poetry to be compiled for future generations of college students such as myself to be studying and breaking apart for want of style, form, and content? I am not sure I can imagine that. Sometimes when I write, it is kind of like being drunk, the hand moves, the words come out of the pen - but I don't remember any of it, I don't know where it came from but I know the poem is mine because it has my signature on it. So if I can't label my poetry as "art", does that make it less so? I wonder if Sylvia Plath ever had these thoughts??