Making it Happen
Most of her life, she just sat around
waiting, wondering why
all the good stuff seemed to happen
to other people.
She stayed on the sidelines, spectator,
perpetual wallflower,
never asked to dance because she hid
in the shadows.
No one can see you when you keep
yourself invisible,
and she was good at that, disappearing
into woodwork.
Whenever she thought about stepping
out from the shade
or the wall, she'd see from the corner
of her eye – the mallet.
Poised to drop, purposely squashing
ambition like a repulsive
insect that threatens our semblance
of tidy, unsullied order.
A bug, often, that's how she sees herself,
sorry for bugging you,
apologizing just for being, as if there is
anything else to be.
Ever curious, she looks up cockroaches,
finds they can survive
a week without their heads, a fact that
makes hers reel.
This is how she is, never able to focus
for too long,
and she wonders if this is a strength
or a weakness.
What if that cockroach learned to live
in the open,
not scurrying for cover of darkness
when light threatens?
And now this poem has jumped
to a new page,
and she thinks I don't write long poems,
but she does.
Somehow she is learning to
make it happen,
create a life as she's always
dreamed it.
I know the picture doesn't really go with the sentiment of the poem, but it's the only bug-related picture I knew I had. And in a sense it does go with the poem, because that's often how I thought I'd end up if I was brave enough to step out into "traffic." Several verses into this poem I got a phone call. From a friend who doesn't know about this me - the Erobintica me. Today, if all goes well, I do something that I've been putting off for well over a year. Nothing horrendous, maybe not even earth-shaking. But something that's scared me for a long time. I'm going to tell her. And I think I'll take a copy of this poem along.
Oh, and thanks (you know who you are) for the missing head image - it gave my poem a certain delightful macabre turn.
6 comments:
I'm stunned by this—probably because it describes so well how I've felt myself for most of my life.
You're going straight onto my blogroll. :-)
Do you mind if I quote a few lines from one of your poems to put in a blog post directing people here? Assuming I can find something that woworks well enough in isolation.
I think the person who tells people they write erotica has the power.
Because other people are impressed, or uncertain, or justreacting - you do a creative thing, you turn words into something sensual, take a position on something sexual for otehrs to read.
Not that many people think sex is bad anymore, though many don't know how to talk about it.
It's a good thing, the writing of it, it's strong.
Hi Tim,
Thank you so much! Good to see you here. And I will add you to my blogroll.
Jo, I've never thought that I had any power - through most of my life. And when you think that, you make it true. The power of negative thinking! Ha! Well, I'd say it's about time I started looking at the other side of this coin.
Thank you! I hope my blog doesn't veer off in a direction that makes you wish you hadn't... (See, that's one of my insecurities.)
Someone whose writing I like told me the other day "I write, but I'm not a writer". But she is. I feel that way about my own stuff though. Maybe for some of us it takes someone else's reaction to convince us that what we're doing really is valid.
Lovely, Robin. Thank you for sharing so much here—so much of yourself.
Wondering how the conversation you reference went...
Hugs and all best to you.
Tim, hmmm, where have I thought that thinking before? ;-)
Em, thank you. And I'll email you.
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