San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)

I am formally renouncing today.

Just the entire day.

Full of screw-ups and disappointment and less-than-desirable situations.

I feel incredibly stupid.

Incredibly dumb.

Incredibly lost.

Done.

Spent.

Fed up.

Mostly with myself.

Actually, it's entirely with myself.

Nobody else has to be sucked in to this...

Whatever it is.

I want to go to bed and just sleep until the end of time.

Just.

I want just these things.

All these things.

I want to redo conversations I had today,

I want to ask all the questions implied when someone paused,

I want to go back and sound smart.

Take back things.

But regret isn't right.

And yet here I am, regretful and brimming with contempt.

All of today has been a failure.

All of today has been a waste.

TIme spent cannot be regained,

Cannot be re-spent.

It is gone,

Always gone.

And it shall never return.

The most elusive of all things,

Yet the most abundant.

There is never enough time.

But there is always too much of it.

If life wasn't a bundle of contradictions,

What would the point be?

Would there be one?

"There is more day to dawn. The moon is but a morning star."

I am growing fond of Henry Thoreau,

He is lovely and the things he say are just beautiful,

And while I may not completely understand them,

I do love them.

I can see why he is so exalted.

And Walt Whitman?

I know nothing of him.

But this is soon to change.

I am the captive audience and

Now the student of the student.

Or so I'd like to see it.

And so this captive will read Whitman.

And I will continue to devour any intellectually satisfying thing I can grasp at.

For it so fascinates me,

I am quite starry-eyed and held a-sway by philosophy, poetry, art.

Again, this love affair with art metaphor -analogy,

It's becoming extended.

One last thing.

I said I hated being praised, and I do.

And then I was asked why,

And it was difficult to explain.

But I think I've narrowed it down to two points.

Point A:

I do not like giving people a glimpse into this soul-bearing thing that is poetry,

I feel like it is making a mockery of the art, for lack of a better term.

I am uncomfortable with just baring my soul to all.

Point B:

I am afraid I will inevitably let someone down. By doing these stress inducing things, I am only ramping up what people expect of me.

And one of these days, I will let them down. I will collapse and it will be the worst thing to happen to me. I cannot let anyone down. I can't trip under the weight of these things I do that earn me praise. I am just too afraid to let them all see the chinks in my armor.

There is not much more I can say.

Yes, I could launch into a rant about him (I always can, on a whim)

But I won't. Because somehow, I feel like I can't.

I cannot do such a thing today.

So I bid thee all adieu and all that jazz.

Sleep tight.

I love you...