April 2007 - A La Solo

A La Solo

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A La Solo - April 2007

Romantic Masochist

Be warned, this is the only piece of poetry I have ever written and it probably breaks every rule in the book (I wouldn't know meter and rhyme from matchboxes and radishes). Anyhow, it's a bit of angst so if you were in a good mood before you started reading it I do apologise ; )

To my Love,

I know it will burn me to come near you and yet I drift irresistibly near until I scorch and welt in the pleasure-drenched agony of an addict.

Pain and pleasure have become so intertwined for me that I can’t turn back.

So now, in love at least, I’m a masochist.

I want to burn.

I want to brush up against it and feel the flames licking at my heart – I’m so close but I can’t turn away.

Smoke doesn’t scare me.

I think I see through your pall anyhow.

I see you there behind all your iron bars, sternly committed to your vows of long ago.

You can’t help your condition.

It’s only that one pale figure you see, feel and breathe.

All else is paper and cardboard, not flesh and feeling.

Our moments together are a passing remedy, a feigned attempt at restarting - a cheap knock-off with fraying seams.

Well, I see you clearly now, you are somewhat less of a mystery than you were,

And I think I love you more – out of empathy more than tolerance.

You would scoff at all that I say here.

But maybe you will stop and stare when I tell you (or even believe me?), when I say that risqué encounters of the reckless heart only remind me of how I always longed for the mediocre encounters of the everyday kind…beside you.

I think you should destroy this before you consider the weight of my words.

For we both know you can never accept a union under any circumstances other than those already bound and broken.

Eternal optimism is the hallmark of love though and so I continue to beg silently, for the stars to rearrange themselves and by so doing reshape our wearisome fates into something more akin to what should be.

And I will try to forget how many times I’ve sought to bind you to my will, by heart and by flesh.

I would be a tramp for you (and no-one else).

I would give up my honor, my ambition, my friends, my all - you held it all to ransom yet you refused to accept the prize!

So I guess it’s another outpouring of emotion gone to waste. More ridiculous proclamations cheapened by the silence that rings after them.

Like a drummer in an empty street so my heart parades through each day longing for someone to hear its rhythm.

That beat grows louder and evermore steady along with the realisation that I cannot live without hope of it being heard.

Am I so beneath your consideration?

Am I merely a romantic masochist bent on bleeding my own heart and yours too until our pain consumes the agony of some other, greater loneliness?

Or is my love a holy, sacred flame that flickers patiently in a pilgrim’s vigil for heart and mind’s fulfillment?

I miss your thoughtfulness, I miss your kindness, I miss your edifying soul.

Would you dare be with me again?

That might be dangerous.

I might tear you down in my attempt to appear self-sufficient.

Yes, I feel convicted.

I am my own victim more than yours.

I am a romantic masochist.

Break me again my love, I need you to crush me completely this time.

No fairy floss fingers this time.

Do it properly.

Break me into two pieces because how can I walk away when part of me is part of you?

Don’t leave me limping and crying like a wounded animal who can never recover.

I’m no good to anyone now.

All I crave is pain - it is the only thing you let me have from you.

I crave its reassuring stabs, tearing at me from the inside.

For if you remove those rabid claws then I know I will feel nothing at all.

Yes, I am a romantic masochist but then maybe you were too.

Maybe you were the first.

And like a vampire you transmitted it to me with the bite of your affection.

Kiss me, thrill me, kill me (Isn’t that how the song goes?/Isn’t that how love goes?)

I won’t expect you to reply.

A romantic masochist wouldn’t do that.

And a romantic masochist wouldn’t want you to either.

We fear nothing except the belief that we have found someone who won’t hurt us.

What a sick joke!

You suffer it with such cool detachment I suspect I am the only one who has diagnosed your condition (after all, it takes one to know one).

Only you won’t ever look for the cure, will you?

Your Romantic Masochist.

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April 24th 2007 @ 14:15

Posted By: Rachelle - Category: No Category

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ANZAC Day

I'll never forget last year's ANZAC day service. My alarm bleeped in the dark until I rolled out of bed. Normally, I'd curse and complain then shut the alarm off and slither down into the toasty depths of my doona. But the memory of why I was getting out of bed so early humbled me into silence. Shivering in the crisp April air I shuffled into jeans and zipped up my ski jacket. My friend and I had decided to visit the dawn ANZAC service at an air force base nearby. Our car swept along through clouds of eery mist as we rolled up to the air base entrance. It surprised me how many were already assembled in respectful stillness. Many were families - civilians far outnumbered service personnel. But as I thought about it, I realised ANZAC day is for those who didn't have to serve their country. A day for those who didn't have to pick up a gun they never wanted to fire, or leave their home they never wanted to leave and go kill people they never hated. A reverent solemnity overwhelmed the grounds as the sky grew from black to sombre blue while the priest made prayers and thanks to God. It was a funeral, a memorial and a tribute. Most of all, as the RAAF commander made explicit in his speech, ANZAC day is not to glorify war but to remind us of the value of peace. As I stood there singing the Australian national anthem I felt as though I was singing it not out of patriotism but out of a heartfelt desire for all the war-ravaged nations of the world to be able to share in our celebration of peace. Its no surprise that as overseas conflicts worsen, the ANZAC day tradition grows ever more meaningful in the hearts of Australians.

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April 13th 2007 @ 09:25

Posted By: Rachelle - Category: No Category

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The Law of Fair Go

It's not enough to want to be an Australian. Now you have to be qualified in it. Just like every other occupation, citizenship has now become something that requires certification, examination and evaluation.

Fair enough. But I know a few people who deserve to undergo the same test to see if they deserve to retain their right to be Australian.

Perhaps there should be a test applied to people who break some of the unspoken laws of Australian society and if they fail, then they should be promptly shipped off to somewhere more appropriate - like Norfolk Island.

There they could gnash their teeth and wail over the shredded pieces of their Australian citizenship certificate.

So what would that sort of test entail? If I was an examiner I would want to determine the following:

When you see a police vehicle parked at the bottom of a dip in the road do you:

a) Immediately slow down.
b) Change lanes in the hope that you will escape the radar gun's line of sight.
c) Pull up behind them real quiet, swap their registration plate for your own then scream past at 130km per hour over, and over and over again.

Or, if your friend is going through a rough time do you:

a) Recommend a good therapist.
b) Tell them to 'lighten up'.
c) Lie to your boss, pack the esky with beer, grab a fishing rod and find a place that's all your own in a land so big you can lose your worries in a place no-one will ever find them again.

If you are a dinky-di Australian then the answers will be obvious. But if you feel the sting of conviction when you realise that you failed the test, that Ned Kelly's death was in vain, that you have bowed to authority and failed to uphold the Australian Way...then let this be a warning to you - if we are going to hold onto our Australianness then we have to uphold the law of Fair Go.

If I had to say what sort of criteria I'd put for people coming into our country I'd say this:

1. They have to be battlers (or else we might forget why this is the lucky country).
2. They have to have a she'll-be-right attitude (it's too bloody hot for any whinging).
3. They have to stand up for their mates (or else our country will really go under).

In my view, people coming from really lovely places like Darfur somewhat demonstrate a commitment to Australian values by giving their own citizenship the boot. Sure they come for opportunity, but they stay for the fair go. And if some Australians don't appreciate the fair go that they have been wallowing in since birth then maybe the new people with their willingess to do whatever it takes to be an Australian will remind them of it.

Lest we forget how bloody lucky we are.

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April 11th 2007 @ 01:08

Posted By: Rachelle - Category: No Category

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Self Defence

When I was little my older brother took great delight in torturing me, teasing me and generally scaring the living daylights out of me. The thing I dreaded most was impromptu leaping out from behind doorways with a skin-peeling yell. It was, for a few tumultuous years, day-to-day living with a psychomaniac. He referred to it wickedly as 'playing with my emotions'. To this day, I still push doors back to the wall before I enter a room. Always. I think that besides that fact he was a troubled, hyperactive youth with masochistic leanings, he was mostly doing it for my own good. Having been born to a different father, I had inherited the opposite extreme in personality traits. I was sedentary, melancholy, gentle, sweet and generally all things nice. My brother saw this as weakness and did his best to toughen me up. And although he may not have succeeded in instilling the warrior spirit and gun-toting prowess of Lara Croft in me he did introduce some very important principles in self-defence.

The first thing he taught me is that the best way to avoid a physical attack is to use your head to avoid a surprise attack in the first place. The random attacks out from behind doorways and walls that I endured were akin to Cato's attacks on Inspector Clouseau. In time I learnt to observe everything about a situation and to always observe the sum of the situation instead of blindly sailing through. The training was effective and soon I was taking great delight in determining when my brother was lurking behind a door and slamming it into his silly face. It wasn't long before the surprise attacks ceased but the lesson never left me and now I always listen to all the little cues that tell me that something is a bit awry about a place or a person

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April 6th 2007 @ 09:42

Posted By: Rachelle - Category: No Category

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Breaking Up

One minute you are breathlessly answering their unexpected phone call, blissfully secure in the knowledge that this person desires you, adores you and wants to be with you more than anyone else. Then you hear the heavy tone in their voice and you are transported from your fluffy clouds of paradise to the edge of a dark abyss. What's wrong? You ask. Your tongue shrivels in your mouth and your skin drags on your body as he begins to say the things you never believed you would. "It's all happened so fast." "You deserve someone better." "I'm not ready for a serious relationship". You are now swaying over the edge of the abyss, staring in terror at the darkness beneath. The ground is crumbling beneath your feet and like in a terrible dream, you can do nothing but desperately clutch onto the phone like some flimsy lifesaver. Bravely you continue to listen and pretend that you understand. You pretend that you are ok. Then without warning, just as you think you can keep clinging to calm he says, "I don't feel the the same way about you as you do about me." Your entire body is paralysed. Breath remains immobile inside you while your brain turns into a heavy buzzing swarm. "Are you ok?" You realise you haven't said anything. Breath you idiot. "Yes, yes, I'm fine." You lie but you don't feel ashamed about it - who can care about honesty when your happiness is being massacred? He continues, generously heaping on the arguments like a bad cook heaping cream over a burnt strudle to disguise the taste. You know he must care to be taking so much time to explain. Perhaps you can gauge how much someone doesn't want to hurt you by the minutes they spend breaking up with you over the phone. It's taken 33 minutes. It takes much longer to feel again. Food makes you cringe. Darkness becomes your closest companion - covering you up, hiding you from the cruel, indifferent day. Only the darkness understands how you want to be invisible, silent and alone. Colours, smells and light are like stinging acid on your senses. You know that it won't last forever and this is the only thing that keeps your chest rising and falling, your embattled heart persisting with life. Ice cream and good friends will salve your wounds but for now, you are wounded and crying, waiting for the poison to work itself out of you and let you be whole again.

At soccer training your body is lethargic with melancholy but you burn with a persistent desire to retaliate. That ball becomes the target of your anger. It becomes your pain, your regret, your sadness. People urge you to pass it to them but you are relentlessly pushing it forward, selfishly refusing to pass because you want to do battle now. It's you versus anyone who gets in your way. You sense someone behind you and their foot suddenly connects with yours and you go sliding painfully into the ground. Grass and sand tear at your skin. Now you have a physical injury to match your emotional one. It feels so appropriate you wish the graze was larger, more bloodied, more visible. You wish you could lose it and pick a fight with someone. Just start hitting them until they hit you back because you can't wage war on pain but you can wage war on people instead. Anything except sitting there, tolerating the agony. You just want to, need to, have to do something about it. But there is nothing to do except to wait until that poison has worked itself out of you.
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April 5th 2007 @ 10:47

Posted By: Rachelle - Category: No Category

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February 2008

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January 2008

2 Posts

December 2007

1 Posts