Killing time.
More like imprisoning:
letting it do anything but
what it's meant to
do.
It wants to be spent
in flings ; contra
I'm here
burning through
from tired
to not
to
so:
idling
with the
park in g - break
on, standing on what
wants to run, settling
what wants to shake,
gelling bound what
wants to break
o f f ties
between
this now
(being
born)
and this
past (before
it dies ) . The
empty, head-
less old cord
always
dies;
hangs
on, but
al-
ways
it-
ches ,
rips
&
d
i
e
s
.
Yeah, those are umbilical cords - hard to find pictures of normal ones: had to use one with extreme torsion and another with a knot in it (doctors are so preoccupied with knowing what "deviant" looks like ... take some pictures of "healthy," doc - let's stay balanced)
ReplyDeleteNever would I have thought that procrastination and bellybuttons could be linked, but here I find myself reading this poem and completely relating to it. Being at the point in my life just before a huge transition into independence and adulthood, I feel that pressure and frustration of being stuck, immobile. I know where I have to go and how freeing it will be once I get there, but at this moment in time, I feel "imprisoned". Some of my friends call this point in our lives "purgatory," and I feel like I am burning up here. It is also rather fitting that this poem is about cutting umbilical cords, because that is what I feel that I need to do in order to make it through my transition into independence. I found it interesting that you placed "being born" in the present and death in the past. In order for me to move on to the next chapter in my life, to be reborn into my new self, my old self has to die. But this is a slow process, and as with an umbilical cord, it cannot be cut completely off all at once; you have to wait for it to fall off on its own. The agony is in the waiting…
ReplyDeleteP.S. What is the shape of the poem meant to represent? I was thinking possibly an umbilical cord, an hour glass, a heart beat…? What did you intend?
A fading pulse (the slow decay of a clinger-on) ... I think that's what I was going for.
DeleteThe described transition is a trapped state of wanting to live but being unable to progress from a limbo stage of an awareness for possible desolation. Through thoughts of not being alive or born but having the possibility of death and imprisoning time “letting it do anything but what it’s meant to do” feels like symptoms of depression. Anybody who has depression isn’t fond of the state but there is a disgusting comfort found in the in between period. There isn’t any current consequence or fast moving result but a feeling of an inevitable gradual push into the nothingness always exists. The cord being cut because of its itching though brings a harsh positivity and hope. We cannot always remain sheltered. Soon we will be thrust into the world to either drown or swim, but because of the title of procrastination, it is just a waiting period before real work is done. Perhaps it is a good thing as exemplified by the title omphaloskepsis as it is exploring and understanding one’s own naval before trying to understand greater complexities in the world.
ReplyDeleteDepression. I think that, often as not, it's not so much a chemical imbalance as a reasonable reaction to one's own life-state.
DeleteHuman beings weren't meant to stay indoors.
There’s a question though if the depression was wanted or forced. Was that life-state given or decided? Because if it’s decided, then perhaps we should just cut the cord already and get out. But too much fear exists. So then isn’t it decided?
DeleteNo one wants to be depressed, or consciously decides to pursue that state: it is a side-effect of other life issues(either of being generally lost and feeling a sense of existential meaninglessness, or of having a good life but not developing effective personal methods for coping in a healthy way with the inevitable sadnesses mixed into every life).
Delete