Existential Blehhhhh

Most people are protected from the horrors of existential angst by the daily routines and relationships that govern their lives. But when one is free of the grounding and purpose-providing entanglements of work, family and intimacy, their life appears arbitrary and unfathomable. The true nature of the world appears in all its random and callousness, so vast and insatiable as to rattle your teeth in the morning. And when you look in the mirror at the face that you know as your own, it appears strange and disjointed, an inscrutible sadness flickering behind eyes that observe themself blankly and without understanding.

Until the 20th century ennui was an ailment reserved for the priviledged classes whose education and idleness gave them ample time to ponder the pointlessness of existence. Now thanks to technology it is the providence of even the lower middle class.

Getting up, listening to Elliot Smith's Needle in the Hay, contemplating death, fantasizing about having sex with my classmate, selecting the right outfit and then going to church.
What does it all mean anyway????!!!

Too Many

from Circe/Mud Poems

by Margaret Atwood

It was not my fault, these animals
who once were lovers

it was not my fault, the snouts
and hooves, the tongues
thickening and rough, the mouths grown over
with teeth and fur

I did not add the shaggy
rugs, the tusked masks,
they happened

I did not say anything, I sat
and watched, they happened
because I did not say anything.

It was not my fault, these animals
who could no longer touch me
through the rinds of their hardening skins,
these animals dying
of thirst because they could not speak

these drying skeletons
that have crashed and litter the ground
under the cliffs, these
wrecked words.

I made no choice
I decided nothing

One day you simply appeared in your stupid boat,
your killer's hands, your disjointed body, jagged as a
shipwreck,
skinny-ribbed, blue-eyed, scorched, thirsty, the usual,
pretending to be -what? a survivor?

Those who say they want nothing
want everything.
It was not this greed
that offended me, it was the lies.

Nevertheless I gave you
the food you demanded for the journey
you said you planned; but you planned no journey
and we both knew it.

You've forgotten that,
you made the right decision.
The trees bend in the wind, you eat, you rest,
you think of nothing,
your mind, you say,

is like your hands, vacant:

vacant is not innocent.

**************

There must be more for you to do
than permit yourself to be shoved
by the wind from coast
to coast to coast, boot on the boat prow
to hold the wooden body
under, soul in control

Ask at my temples
where the moon snakes, tongues of the dark
speak like bones unlocking, leaves falling
of a future you won't believe in

Ask who keeps the wind
Ask what is sacred

Don't you get tired of killing
those whose deaths have been predicted
and are therefore dead already?

Don't you get tired of wanting
to live forever?

Don't you get tried of saying Onward?"

Players' Club

If only I could get him out of my head. And what an ugly mess this has all become. I suppose it was inevitable considering neither one of us is exactly mild mannered, conventional or even sane, for that matter… When I told him I loved him I didn’t expect to be accused of being manipulative. And how I shriveled inside when he said definitively “I’m not going to fall in love with you before I leave.” I know it was crazy to let myself feel this way when he’s going back to Serbia for good. Maybe I was indulging my own emotions, letting them run free because I knew he was leaving anyway and it could never go anywhere. Was I being selfish and irresponsible? But after months of these games, I’m exhausted – him telling me he loved me countless times - was it for real? I saw him lose himself with me; I saw those naked looks in his eyes, felt his tenderness and his desire.
I was furious, how dare he toy with me, swatting away my feelings as if they meant nothing! The truth is few men catch at my heart, few men captivate me, excite me. Its been years since a man has evoked these feelings in me. Then I saw that book The Game, some hideous players' handbook lying on his bed. Was he playing some cruel trick on me? Manipulating me for his own ego gratification? He lay in bed, staring at me with those intense eyes, the blue-grey eyes I cannot get out of my head. I wordlessly picked the book up, meeting his gaze with mine - raw, angry, hurt - and tore the cover to pieces. Then I took my things and left. I doubt I’ll ever see him again. But I have to reclaim my heart.