Life Unravelling

[CalebPerry]

Life Unravelling

I can’t love anyone who doesn’t love
me back, so every relationship unravels,
for no one has ever loved me that much
that I really felt it, enough for me to say,
“I can die today because I know I was loved”;
and so I grow older, older, lonelier,
lonelier, wondering when the charade will end,
waiting to feel loved at least once so I can die. <------------- Should I add this line?

☙

Written in a moment of introspection.

[jisbell00]

Hi Caleb,

Great title. I'd write unraveling in the US.
I like the poem too, it seems to freight lived experience.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

Thank you, John.

I generally prefer British spellings. Americans like to eliminate as many letters from a word as they can, but then we end up with no rules in English. In "ravelling", the -e- is short, so it should be followed by two consonants. We seem to have decided to make an exception when a word ends with "el", but I don't like that exception.

The other poem I posted yesterday is long, but it's an easy read. I'm saying that because my poems seem to be getting fewer and fewer critiques lately. I don't understand why that should happen, given that I write so clearly.

[MilesTRanter]

Hi Caleb,

I like the title too (as John does). The narrator seems to be a certain type of person who has regrets. It’s kind of a paradox. We attract what we are. Just last night I came across this article called “7 things people usually dwell on when they’re living in the past.”

https://hackspirit.com/things-people-us ... -the-past/

The poem seems to be saying that the narrator has never gotten the kind of love he or she desired. Yet I think if you are a loving person, there is a good chance (though not guaranteed) that they will find someone who is as loving as they are. Also, there is no age limit on finding someone to love and be loved by. A friend of mine just the other day told me that his aunt got married for the first time in her life when she was 80. She met the guy on a train to Florida. So there’s always hope.

The narrator of this poem feels that life is a charade. It can certainly seem that way when one is unhappy! When there is a feeling of despair. This poem has echos of Prufrock.

[CalebPerry]

Martin, I agree with everything you said. The poem is about an unenlightened person who is persistently dissatisfied with what he has gotten from other people and from the world, and that dissatisfaction continues to screw up his life, preventing him from getting what he wants, or from getting more of anything. That is very much the kind of person I was. I am the person for whom the glass was always half empty.

When I write poems like this, I'm just making a statement, and the statement may be good or bad. I'm not looking for a solution in this poem, just being honest about myself.

I have made some strides in becoming a better person. I am old but my mind is as sharp as ever. As a consequence of that, I have managed to get on every government program in the U.S. that I qualify for. The most lucrative of them is Section 8. For about five years, the government has been paying 70% to 80% of my rent. Also, my electricity, gas and internet are mostly paid for, and my drug co-pays are low. After being on Section 8 for two years, about $8,000 had built up in my checking account. So when the pandemic started and neighbors were facing eviction because they lost their jobs, I started to help people out. I paid a neighbor's rent for two months, and I helped her buy a car. One person who was being evicted got more than $5,000. And then I started giving money to food banks. In the last three years, I have given away $20,000.

I'm not saying this makes me a better person, nor am I thinking that God is going to bless me with a well-hung lover or anything like that, but it does represent a turning-around of my natural stinginess. I have developed one good friendship in the last year. We'll see what happens.

But I'm still giving grief to my family. I just told off my oldest brother, who was a bit of a bully and now thinks he can act like a gentleman without facing his past actions. I have other siblings who didn't treat me well, and I am not letting them off the hook for that.

On the other hand, I recognize now that I am a person who was born with my Repulser beam turned on, and if no one liked me, that was basically my own fault. The Repulser beam can still be seen in my more controversial poems.

[jisbell00]

That's a good story, Caleb. Thank you for sharing it.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

I added a couple paragraphs after you posted. I don't want you to miss any of it.

As I said, I just adore a good narrative.

[jisbell00]

I like the idea of a Repulser beam!

Forgiveness to my mind is a process. In the best of cases, it is earned - that's always nice. But in other cases, I tell myself that it is for the forgiver, not the forgivee. I have a bloke who ended my career at the age of 33. It took some time, but I forgave him, not for that worthless liar, obviously, but for my own spiritual health. I feel much better for it. Of course, I never have to see that person again. As they say, the best revenge is living well.

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

If someone ended my career (I assume with a lie in your case), I would be obsessed about it forever. The way you tell that, however, makes me think you might have been a professional, and that he got you kicked out of the profession. It's amazing how much harm people can do to you if they set their minds to it. (I don't know if I talked about karma in my series on Seth. I'll have to take a look.)

Three of my six siblings found a way to take larger cuts of my mother's estate than the rest of us got. Two of the other three didn't seem to mind, but I was enraged and let it be known. I have now mostly forgiven them. Those three made much more money than I did, and I needed the money more. I agree that one needs to forgive for one's self more than for the other person

Helping people has turned out to be an interesting experience. Some people have an enlightened attitude and take the money thankfully, but don't feel beholden to me (which I don't want them to feel). But the person I gave the $5,000 to developed some resentment toward me that I didn't understand, and found a small but nasty way to snub me. That's an interesting story in itself, but will probably never make it into a poem.