What the world holds dear

I wonder if I think too much and don't speak enough. Consequently existing are my cryptic posts, quasi-over simplified poetry, and a wall that could defeat the wall of China. There is something waiting to burst on the screen.

However, I am eager to NOT mirror the bloodletting sessions of so many myspacers who let all their personal business hang-out to dry for the internet savvy and salacious. I understand this is a new fad that the New York magazine has coined as the most mis-understood social movement since rock& roll. Since, I can't really blab what is on my mind without taking this diversion into social commentary, let me rant for at least three sentences or more.

For every person that says spreading your business on the internet is simply a way of expressing yourself, I counter: are there not millions of other ways of expressing yourself without having half the world aware of what you look like in the nude or other compromising positions?

For others who state they are not shamed, will never be shamed, or otherwise disgusted with their nude pictures, online flaming (or dissing), and exposing of personal business, I beg the question: how can you know how you will feel in the future?

Finally, for all of you fully convinced that no one can do anything with pictures of you from the internet and truly see this whole wave of "internet exposeeing" as a wonderful attempt at social overthrow, think again.

No one sees you the way you do. Regardless of the angle, everyone has their own take on your personal story. I have fully clothed pictures of myself online because I prefer to leave the interpretations of my proportions up to the man upstairs who made them. Leaving deity out of the picture altogether, there is a fine line between self-respect and disclosure.

Why is it necessary for our lives to be open books? I have never understood that. Because I don't disclose personal information does not mean that I am ashamed. I simply enjoy having certain things that only I know about myself kept to myself. I do not wish to attempt to become the next Anna Nicole Smith. It is completely incomprehensible why others wish to mirror her ploys and exhibitionist tactics for public attention, scrutiny and ridicule.

All attention is not necessarily good.
I'd prefer to have my life belong to me and not to myspace, bebo, xanga or anyone else. Photoshop is alive and kicking--use it with caution kids!

From there to here

I think I took a slight respite from blogging for the sake of some serious internal reflection. I don't know how helpful that was, in all honesty, but I am back and ready to try my hand at some serious writing. Ah! Serious writing! (You may ask for further exposition.) But, I can't really give you a complete answer. So, my attempt at serious writing with the noble title of: "From there to here" is replete with all the poetic justice this day of revelation deserves.

In the beginning there was there (and a poem to follow):

HOLD ME

Since you cannot hold me
I try to hold myself

But,
on days I slip
and guide my diva sunglasses
down the bridge of my nose
So Antonio's Pizzeria won't see
my buckling knees
bull-red eyes
and watery bursts as he yells, "Bella, bella"

The sad/happy streets of West 110th
were once so welcoming

Since you cannot hold me
I must hold myself

I swear,
I won't make it another block
The men in the park stare
at my bobbing ponytail
earphones jammed in
shutting out what I cannot hear:

traffic saying:
Mr. Johnson saying:
Mr. cabbie saying:
What I will not acknowledge to be true

Since you cannot hold me,
I am slipping

And,
it seems that the angels had to guide me today
from tripping over myself
As I crossed Columbus Avenue.

You cannot see
where I fell

You cannot predict
How I will rise

Without you holding me.

---Britta Jensen

And, suddenly, I am here in all the multifaceted layers:

BOMBING OUT

The vast array

of hues

that describes

my armament

doesn’t fully do me justice

sea glass green orbs: for eyes

honey wheat firecrackers: for hair

AND THE LIST GOES ON

Glamour and Vogue can’t catalogue

the fierceness,

the wild

that encompasses everything that shuts on and off

on my pressure cooker valve

the valve that

when you look my way

wants to either burn or caress

or cook you whole

Where my metamorphosis

went wrong

could be described by all the tagger’s prose…

littering my environs…

ZODIAC and SKRIKER

haven’t got anything

on

the

beast

within.

---Anjali Sen
(My alter-ego)