Confusion

Our next exercise tonight was to write either a complete physical description of an object and then relate these descriptive words to a family member, or to write about an abstraction.  When the abstraction, “confusion,” was suggested, I immediately knew where my affinity lay.  I am on intimate terms with confusion.  For challenge, I decided to try to write it as a rhymed poem.  I think it came out okay.

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CONFUSION

I watch the morning sun arise
and bring forth new that day
a sense of hopeless loss and fear
and watching all that lay

about my mind in tangled mess
and muddy thoughts profound.
No simple loss of innocence
could ease that scentless hound.

The morning sun, it never changes
yet never is the same.
The ice of frozen memories
melt little with its flame.

How, and who, and why, and what
the questions all abound–
the rock tied to the rope of thought
tossed random all around.

No home in thee.  No home for me.
My unbound thoughts no rest.
No glassy lake of mirrored sheen
to help my mind do best.

The morning sun now in the noon.
The time goes back and forth.
Scrambled eggs of lunchtime sup
and Eastward goes the North.

And so my face goes upside-down
to match my state of brain,
and the morning sun now rise to night
to fall up-down again.

Never Friends

This was the first exercise I completed in a writing class I took tonight.  First, our instructor led us through several memory prompts.  We were just to write down a few words that came into our minds with each prompt.  When she suggested, “The first time you went to a sporting event,” something resonated with me.  I ignored her other prompts and scribbled the following.

I remember the crowds – the noise – the overwhelming sense of smallness in a world that I didn’t care for and that cared not about me.  The time clock–ticking down four times.  Popcorn.  Not being heard or being able to hear.

When she later told us to spend ten minutes writing about one of our memories, this was the one I naturally chose.  Our objective was to write continuously–not to lift our pen from the paper.  Continuous stream of consciousness.  I produced the following:

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NEVER FRIENDS

The blue seats were better than the yellow.  That was the goal.  The thing to be achieved.  I dashed back and forth with the money entrusted to me to find someone selling the seats represented by small pieces of paper.  I was good.  I could always find the sellers.  But that was the only good part.

Then inside.

Inside there was the clock.  Ticking down 4 times successively.  There was an infinite of noise–enough that I could neither hear nor be heard.  I sat and watched the clock.

The ball would catch my interest sometimes.  If the clock bored me, I would control the ball–make it either fall in or miss the basket.  I was good.  I succeeded 50% of the time.

The yellow seats were better for me–quieter.  The blue seats were better for them.  Closer.  There was food that was better then both.  Hot dogs.  Popcorn.

The place didn’t belong to me.  I didn’t belong to it.  We coexisted–tolerating each other.  We never, ever, became friends.