Poetry Post #4

Disintegration

i live in a square.
one night i ate it
with my nose and thought this:
you’re a pillar.
my friend, who is also a demanding
lover looked me dead in the eye
and said:
this is wrong. and then a sudden turbulence
over the district.
i broke a neck for you – let
the juices run down like
i was wringing my hands.
i went back home
i didn’t want to talk about it.

Memory Loss and Storytelling

The trend in recent years has become to record events almost in the instant they unfold. Facebook status, “away” message, blog-spots and word-presses, photographs from the night before viewed by all the morning after. When did we all become so afraid of our own memories? Do we really not trust ourselves enough to remember these occasions so momentous?

I personally am afraid I will be entirely forgotten. Rubbed off the map somehow, or simply replaced.

But what I know is that people don’t ever really forget. They carry things around with them until the day they die, even if they never reflect on a time or a person or place ever again. Things happened to you, things shaped you. ..But still, why the manic immediacy? So much raw material and information can damage. Things are overlooked and warped by your present bias. I’m guilty of looking for answers for situations present, that don’t have answers. They probably have an answer that goes something like this: C’est la vie.

I want to tell perfectly true stories, woven with fantastical details. The fantastical details are the truest parts of any really good story, and often mistaken for the mundane: what you thought about when you woke up, your friend walking round with their shirt inside-out, the way the music felt in your stomach or the disputed color of your loved ones eyes.

My Obscenely Small Town

Every time  I come home to Troy, NY – I dread leaving the house. The area I was raised in is fairly nice: it’s near the Adirondacks, plenty of parks, the arts scene is picking up… However, I have no desire to run into someone I graduated high school with whenever I want to buy groceries.

I turned a corner into the produce section of our local monstrous Price Chopper Supermarket and was assaulted by someone I apparently should have remembered. His face was vaguely familiar and he insisted we had an art class together, but I couldn’t remember this guys name. Do I really have to remember the names of everyone I sort-of kind-of but-not-really knew five years ago? I legitimately felt guilty for a moment; but then he refused to tell me his name, shook his head as if to say “shame on you” and walked away.

I spent a good deal of yesterday downtown, hiding in Market Block Books. I started and finished Sherman Alexie’s YA novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian“. It took two hours and it felt really good to blow through a book (even if it was YA). Alexie always gets a thumbs up from me.

It is somehow jarring to me to spend so much time in the place I was raised: the public library where I spent many summers, the bars my father used to drink excessively in, 70% of my graduating class hanging around (they’re EVERYWHERE), the familiar faces of local crazies – forever embedded in my brain… They say you can always go home.  Right, well while Troy may be my hometown,  it has long lost its spot as “home” in my heart.

The American Girl Returns…

…and then questions what it means to be American.

I suppose I should have realized early on that the majority of my posts on life abroad would be made retroactively. You truly hit the ground running and then suddenly the ground runs out, you’re sky bound and back on your home soil.  I wont delve into detail too much, it’s not the greatest feeling: In fact, it is the strangest feeling I’ve ever experienced.

I found myself frequently defending my nationality when I was abroad. To be fair, everyone felt the same need: If you were from Canada, you we’re a happy-go-lucky pacifist. British? Way too proud. And I won’t even get started on the repercussions of being French… All of this was taken with a cheerful grain of salt, however. International students seem to understand they’re all in the same extremely overcrowded booze crusie boat. It’s a lot of fun.

However, now that I’ve returned to the land of McMansions, vanity license plates and the overweight… I question what it really means to be American. I’ve lived here my entire life! Could five months abroad really throw so large a wrench into the works?

Absolutely. Welcome to reverse culture shock.

So I’m going to continue with this blog now, reliving and recording all my experiences, thoughts, poetry and little snapshots of the amazing and beatiful people I met during my first time abroad. Note I said first time. That’s right Europe, now you wont be able to get rid of me!

Lost in Hudson, NY