by Jennifer Shipp

Created on: July 21, 2009

I begin to see myself

And I begin to disappear.

And both are uncomfortable and sad.

Time that I wasted.

Time that I survived.

I am because I chose to be and I don't believe that

I am me.

And not me.

That all of it is not real, jolts me and worries me and makes me happy.

To have made the discovery.

It is a dramatic place and the plot unfolds.

Like a napkin.

At dinner.

And is thrown away after cleaning up the mess.

And I see ahead of me,

What I see behind me.

Again with a minor variation on the theme.

An overture.

A Symphony.

An annoying noise, like the grind of the friend who complains and only tries to do nothing when confronted with solutions and happy endings.

I could read moon signs and sun signs all day

And give estimates and approximations of

Visions of Truth and

Visions of Light.

And retrieve through you what I seek for myself.

But still feel the loneliness at the top of the world.

Me and My Visions.

Contemplating my choice to be the hermit and not the conqueror.

Because with visions I could conquer.

But would only weep and then die when the world was all mine.

I might travel through my mind-vision at the speed of light.

And break through onto another plane altogether.

Dismayed by the Getting of What I Want.

The balancing act is mine.

I choreograph the players and

We balance and fall.

Laughing and crying.

Pushing and pulling at our foolishness.

Wishing there was more and less to the act of being balanced.

I ask to be understood,

But fear the profundity of my own simplicity

And the possibility that superficiality runs too deep in me.

And I might get lost inside the barren prairies

of my lack of interest.

And others may be dismayed to find

my city streets

to be lined with sod houses and

simple characters from a place where they just couldn't make ends meet

because of their own Personal Impoverishment.

Sometimes I can see how I was.

Never cut out to be

Cut out.

And that the paper dolls around me are all holding hands.

Outlined but never completely severed from

The whole piece.

I am not a doll.

Nor am I a finished product

Worthy of pinning on the wall

Or discussing over steaks and wine

In fine garments and too much perfume.

I have not defined the outer limits

And done the surgery to make myself into

Something more and less than

What is neither cut nor carved.

And as I look upon the rough nature of my estate,

I realize that I am looking and no longer only being the rough estate.

With tools in hand, I can make myself

And others be

What I want them to be.

Vascillating between

States of ecstasy and inspiration and

States of fear and disillusionment

Still wondering about Love and altering the media that I have been given.

Can it be more beautiful if I put my hand to it?

Was I given the tools for the purposes of creation or for the purposes of temptation?

Will I, through my own power, destroy the opportunity

To read into the imperfections and know the One who made the medium

if I put my hand to it?

And cut and carve, or paint and knit

What was once pure and unadulterated.

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