The Audience is Listening

Success favours an audience but failure simply cannot exist without one.

Everyone is worried about how we will be remembered but the question is how will I remember me?

How am I living up to my expectations?
Am I on my way to becoming a better version of me?

Am I not my biggest audience? My harshest critic?

last night in the gym I was disappointed that I could only lift a fraction of what I lifted 5 months ago. I was bothered by the fact that everyone else was tearing down the gym while I was just coasting along with baby weights.

5 months ago I made it to the final 8 of my tennis league but could not play in the finals. I could have viewed this as a disappointment but instead I saw it as progress. I didn’t win but I was in the finals. Isn’t that a build on last year?

5 months ago I couldn’t even go near a gym or tennis court much less lift weights. I thought to myself isn’t this progress? Isn’t this a success in itself?

Eventually I’ll get to where I was in my weight training and exceed that. This summer I know I’ll make it to the finals so I can focus on contending the trophy.

Everything happens in increments and I am making progress even if I’m the only one who knows it.

I am my audience and the audience is listening.

Yield

Close to midnight

I am revealed

Silver line in a blackening sky

Where I tried to pass for Jupiter

My two friends outstretched

Wait for my hand

Pull me back from quiddity

Make liquid skies bearable

stillpoint

In this dimly lit room

While potential lovers steal moments

Away from her

Spotlights mapmake my mind

Expose a need for help

Footprints In my sands of time

carve untold stories

Seen through other caring eyes

As I fight the salt in mine

and yield

I have been criticized for not being more explanatory with my poetry but I hold on to the belief that poetry is open to interpretation and should not be so definitive. As my mentor Sally said the other day, I could write a poem about a lampshade and someone could swear it’s about their hat.

That to me is the beauty of poetry…your own interpretation. Though some pieces are straightforward there are other pieces that are abstract and are meant to be clandestine and therein lies the beauty of it all.

Take for instance the opening lines of this poem “Close to Midnight, I am revealed” What does this really mean? Is it something that happened near midnight? Does midnight really represent the time, or is it symbolism for a change that is about to happen since midnight represents the start of a new day? or is it the end of something else? I am revealed…is there a secret that is being exposed? A moment of truth forced or otherwise? An expose of something bad or something good?

It is really up to you the reader to make some sense of these words. Perhaps the key to the true meaning lies in the lines that follow. I leave it up to you.

(I really don’t want to be that transparent so that everyone can see right through me). Don’t we all want to appear somewhat mysterious? Can we at least leave some things to the imagination. Isn’t a peek-a-boo bodice more appealing than just a bare chest?