Trivial

There aren’t any lights on in the house
every room is caved in black
A darkness that seeps into my skin.
And I’m focusing on the computer monitor glowing
bright light coming from the screen.
So I pretend that I don’t care and rub my unwashed hair
and give that thousand-yard stare.
Remembering prayers chanted throwing pennies in that well
Before I became trivial.

Finding out about my faults
my precious man took a bow and walked
Saying he couldn’t be a one-woman man.
I clenched and unclenched my fists
forcing those words away from my lips
“You can go to Hell!”
Now that I am trivial.

Don’t you realize that I fight
Every morning and every night
To keep this smile plastered to my mouth.
Wishing I was fooling everyone
Yet hoping he’ll see the sun
and come running at the sound of that bell
Shouting I’m not trivial.

I guess with time I will see
You’re not the hero I’d thought you’d be
all that pressure made you sick.
Blowing the hair away from my face
clears away the darkened trace of doubt in my mind.
The doubt that came the day I fell
The day I unveiled Trivial.

Push You Down

I said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been good enough,
I’m a little bit rusty, and I think my head is caving in.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been really loved,
By a hand that’s touched me, and I feel like something’s
Going to give. And I’m a little bit angry.”

This isn’t over, no not here, not while I still
Need you around. You don’t owe me,
We might change, we just might feel good.

I said, “I don’t know why you would ever lie to me,
Like I’m a little untrusting when I think the truth
is going to hurt you.
And I don’t know why you just couldn’t stay with me.
You couldn’t stand to be near me,
When my face didn’t seem to want to shine.
Because it’s a little bit dirty.”

Don’t just stand there, saying nice things to me.
I’ve been cheated, I’ve been wronged.
And you don’t know me, I can’t change that.
So, I won’t do anything at all.

But don’t bowl me over, just wait one minute.
It kind of fell apart, things got so crazy.
So, don’t rush this, let me enjoy my moment.

I would love to push you down, I wish I could.
I would love to push you around, maybe someday.
I would love to take you for granted, in the exact same way.

I may never get married.....

I had a literature class. We had to journal what we were reading:

It was a typical knight’s tale including the castle, status as a favorite of the king, the beautiful wife, all followed by, of course, envy and slander. Thus begins the story of Eliduc. At first, the knight Eliduc garners your sympathy by being honorable, brave, and an exemplary model to follow: Eliduc serves faithfully, is in charge of the king’s territories, and is also given royal favors because of his performance and service. After Eliduc is slandered in his native France and dismissed by the king, Eliduc voluntarily places himself in exile and travels to England to see if he can fare any better there. Eliduc’s experiences in England almost mirror what has occurred to him up until this point in France: invited to live in the castle, status as a favorite of the king as well, the castle, and a beautiful young girl who falls in love with him. Similar, but let us not forget that Eliduc is already married in France and is committing adultery if he pursues it. Women have more control, even unknowingly, over men’s lives than they realize.
In England, Eliduc encounters his first sign of trouble – the king’s young daughter, Guilliadun. After spending some time together, the Guilliadun and Eliduc have apparently fallen head-over-heels in love together. After they make their love known to one another, Eliduc is summonsed home to France, and Eliduc makes plans to return home, but only after making a promise to Guilliadun to return to get her on a date of her choosing. Upon returning home, Eliduc is reunited with his lawful wife, Guildeluec who has remained faithful to him. But Guildeluec notices a behavior in Eliduc that is surly and secretive and plots to find out the reason why.
Upon Eliduc’s return to France, he spirits away the young Guilliadun by ship to England. Upon the boat ride home there is such a storm that all the sailors believe the worst is going to happen. One of the sailors blames the young girl, shouting that they should throw her overboard as Eliduc is defying God, and his proper wife at home by remaining with Guilliadun. This is the first time Guilliadun learns that Eliduc is married. In her shock at Eliduc’s marriage, and fearing for her life because of the sailor’s threats, Guilliadun faints, and falls to the deck without breath or sign of consciousness. Believing Guilliadun to be dead, Eliduc brings her body to a chapel in the woods to bury her. Yet after many days, Guilliadun still appears alive with rosy cheeks, pink skin, just faintly pale. Eliduc visits the chapel in secret every day, but his wife Guildeluec has him followed to discover once and for all why he is so miserable. The queen journeys to the chapel herself, and upon finding the young girl in repose, and being pretty sharp herself, she knows that the young girl Guilliadun is her husband’s mistress and the reason for his unhappiness and grief. In a magical moment of watching a weasel resurrect its dead mate with a mysterious life-giving flower, Guildeluec restores Guilliadun to consciousness and assures her of Eliduc’s love and devotion. Upon returning to the castle and reuniting the two lovers, Guildeluec observes the overwhelming love between Guilliadun and Eliduc. Realizing the depth of the love and the happiness in her husband, Guildeluec asks her husband to separate from her so she can become a nun and he can marry the girl whom he loves. This is the only way that a man can ‘legally’ marry a second woman in God and the church’s view. Guildeluec sacrifices her own lifestyle to become a nun in order for the man she married, and loves still, to be happy. Guildeluec loved Eliduc so much that she renounced their marriage for him to marry another. What a woman.

Manipulation & Mortals

I had a literature class. We had to journal what we were reading:

The Aeneid begins with Aeneas and Achates arrival at Carthage, a town that is progressing before their eyes, building into a fine city. Aeneas is impressed with what he sees before him; everything being built to last a long time. Aeneas reminisces with Achates and weeps, remembering what they have already been through: Hector being dragged around Troy’s walls by Achilles, the amazon queen Penthesilea also killed by Achilles, and battle. Aeneas and Achates see their former shipmates who were lost from their sight in a storm, which makes them very happy, but remembering their cloudy mantle they repress their excitement to observe from the side some more. The former shipmates approach Queen Dido and tell her that they lost King Aeneas at sea on the way to Italy, and they believe he is dead. Queen Dido offers the men safety, and offers to send out her men to look for Aeneas. At this point, Aeneas and Achates break from the cloud of disguise, which was given them by Venus, Aeneas’ mother. All throughout the Aeneid, we see the manipulations of the gods in the characters’ lives.
Upon meeting, Aeneas compliments Queen Dido’s beauty and impresses her with his speech. She also wants to impress Aeneas and calls for a feast with much preparation. Before and during the feast, Juno and Venus both intervene and help the queen along in her feelings for Aeneas, and she starts to fall in love with him. Queen Dido is viewed as madly in love, wandering the city, thinking only of Aeneas: caressing the place where he sat, roaming places they had visited together. The queen lapses on her responsibilities to the city and its people, and the city falls to latency.
Meanwhile, Mercury seeks out Aeneas, and asks him if it is his duty to build Carthage or is his duty to his gods. Mercury tells Aeneas that he has to leave, secretly, to journey to Dis (Hades). Aeneas prepares to leave, and Dido is furious. In their discussion, Aeneas speaks as though their relationship is over. Dido tries to keep Aeneas there, but he is duty-bound to Jupiter and leaves regardless of anything Dido might say or do. After Aeneas leaves, Queen Dido tricks her sister who she has prepare a pyre to burn Aeneas’ things in attempt to bring him back to her by using ‘magic powers.’ In reality, it is Queen Dido’s own funeral pyre – she commits suicide. In Dis (Hades), Aeneas sees Dido, who rejects him even after he explains that it was not his will but the gods’ will that drove him away from her. Even in death, she spurns him, and returns to her first husband for comfort and love together in eternity.
All along we see Aeneas and Dido getting shoved one way or another by the machinations of the scheming gods and goddesses. In the end, Dido dies in a tragic manner by killing herself. When Aeneas sees her, he pleads with her to forgive him as he did not think or know that his leaving would affect her so. In the end, neither Aeneas nor Dido know that the reason Dido’s love for Aeneas burned so bright and so deep was because it was influenced by Juno and Venus' manipulative ways.

Homerm Odysseus, and The Odyssey

I had a literature class. We had to journal what we were reading:

Many themes circulate throughout Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. We see gods and goddesses cast judgment upon mortals, while holding themselves unaccountable for similar transpirings. We see honor, bravery, vengeance, and grudges held for many years; heroes made from fair dealings and honorable ways of living. However, one of the main ideas threaded throughout both epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, is the treatment of the traveler and the hospitality received from peoples formerly unknown to them.
In The Odyssey it is through our hero, Odysseus, and the treatment he receives while on his 20-year wander that we see some of the ways and manners of the people at that time. Starting with Odysseus’ stay with the immortal sea nymph Kalypso, who upon finding Odysseus on her shore proceeds to care for him as in the manner of a god; bathing him, feeding, him, caring for him, everything short of sending him home. Once it is decided that home is where Odysseus is bound, however, Kalypso provides Odysseus with all the tools, victuals, and clothing to make the journey in as much comfort as possible. Other incidents involve the goddess Athena, who never appears to mortals in her own countenance, but takes on different guises to travel into various towns. In each of these towns, the people treat her as a ‘friend,’ feed her, provide a fire to warm her, provide whatever she may require, and upon her departure offer a gift as well. That is how the customs were in those days; treat everyone as you would a friend for you may never tell when an immortal may be ‘testing’ you, and grave things befell those who spurned a god or goddess.
The incident that singularly stands out in The Odyssey is on Odysseus’ final leg home he is found upon an unknown shore, and ‘happens’ to meet the princess (with a little help from Goddess Athena) who feeds, bathes, and clothes Odysseus before helping him back to her mansion to consult with her father and mother, the king and queen. After the advice from Princess Nausikaa and Goddess Athena, Odysseus enters the banquet hall and sits down “amid the ashes” of the hearth. This action is explained by “the suppliant who sits there is, so to speak, on consecrated ground and cannot be forcibly removed.”[1] After hearing Odysseus’ plea, the king and queen invite Odysseus to join their feast that evening, have him spend the night in their home, have another feast in his honor in the morning, pentathlon games – all without ever knowing Odysseus’ name! This is a fine example of how strangers were treated in those times.
[1] Homer. "The Odyssey." The Norton Anthology Expanded Ed. Mack et al. New York: Norton, 1995. Footnote 3, p.289