(Backhanded) Compliments

Dear You,

You are such a considerate individual for turning the lights on at 3 in the morning when everyone else was sleeping. Thank you. I wanted to wake up that early anyway. Forgive my audacity to even expect you to consider other people when you’re probably tired from a hard day’s work yourself.

Remember that one time I asked if you’d be kind enough to throw the trash? You answered “YOU CAN’T MAKE ME” in such a powerful voice. I was indeed amazed! What a display of confidence from someone who keeps dumping litter in the can all day and night long.

Above everything that you do best, I’m always impressed by how you make up stories about your fabulous existence and other people’s mediocre life. I must say you are very creative! Did you get a degree in fiction writing or something? The stories you come up with are brilliant; with unbelievable plots too! If you work harder you may just end up as a best-selling author and be lined up with some of this world’s well-known writers.

But wait, I notice you have a potential for acting too. The way you portray a harmless darling in front of other people, the way you smile so innocently , the way you tend to act like a victim – very commendable! You are a good actress for someone who never took an acting class.

Sometimes I wish to be like you. There, I finally said it!  You’re so amazing! Fuck you’re so talented. You’re waaay charming for a deceiver. How did you learn all that so well?

Sincerely,

more praises coming your way

* Story also featured at Yeah Writers!

Why read poems?

Poems bore me like a grey sky on a gloomy Monday morning. There is lack (or absence) of excitement in poems. Lack or absence of everything actually – characters, adventures, climax, plot, conflict. Everything.

Poems are as hard to write as they are to understand. I hate how those perfectly arranged words take you and leave you wanting for more. You write them for days, read them in minutes and get you thinking, even disturbed, for weeks.

I don’t like poems, or poets for that matter. Poets are insane. The metre, the phrasing, the rhythm, the verses put together are just too much of a hard work. And nobody even pays attention! Still, they keep doing the same thing.

With his finished product of well-selected words, the poet intellectually lures you to his world like playing a trick without you even noticing it. And I don’t like that cleverness.

I’d rather enjoy a comic book with all the illustration to not mislead its reader. On a perfect sunny day in the park, I’d rather pick up a plainspoken composition that does not require too much engaging. I’d rather not cultivate my imagination or my critical thinking. I’d rather not appreciate the beauty, power and mystery that is in every carefully thought of form of poetry.

So why read poems? If you’re going to ask me, I suggest you don’t.