From the Other Side of Armageddon: Blogging Around with Rommy Week 10

I’m so accustomed

to keeping my sword sheathed,

that its sharpness unsettles

even me.

This poem is linked to the Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads' Tuesday Platform and Poets United Poetry Pantry 444.

Liner Notes for this Groove:

It’s been a rough week, Groovers. To be perfectly honest, I’m still reeling a bit from fallout after a heated political conversation with someone who (not to put too fine a point on it) frankly should have known better.

I’m aware that a lot of my surface persona (both on-line and in the physical world) is bubbly, sometimes thoughtful, but not obsessed with appearing too serious. One of my college nicknames was “Lil’ Bouncy One”. But people who have known me for a long time are fairly aware I have a bit of a stereotypical temper. I’m not nice when finally angered. If you’re lucky, I’ll just wash my hands of you and never let the thought of your existence bother my calm again. If not, I’ll scorch and salt the earth behind me while toasting marshmallows over the wreckage.

This last time though, has me thinking of the TV trope Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. It’s not that I didn’t mean what I said; I meant every word. And the anger I’ve had over the topic of the discussion has been building for a while. It’s that in the past I prided myself on keeping cool at times like that. I wanted to be someone who builds bridges, not burns them. But (like most people in the US) I’m more than a little tired and angry that I have to keep explaining that people outside your group (however you define it) are still human too.

As I unpack the feelings from the fallout, I’m finding that it’s providing fertile ground for a bunch of poems for my upcoming poetry collection, as well as for my prose writing. I suppose that doesn’t make me much different from other poets or authors. A lot of us work out some of those complicated feelings through our words, right? But I’m not sure I’d do things, well as intensely, if I had to do it again. I may not have started it, but I escalated a verbal Armageddon when I could have chosen differently. Neil Gaiman once famously wrote, “Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'what kind of tea?” It might have been better for both sides to have had the cuppa of their choice and thoughtfully engage afterwards.

So let’s talk Groovers. Have you ever had an instance when the words that came out of your mouth might've done hurtful things you didn't intend? Tell me about it in the comments or just talk to me about what’s new in your world. My cyber home is open for conversation. As always, if you’d like to continue the conversation in your own cyber home, bring that up in your comments and hit me with a link.

Song Choice: Burning Bridges by 2/3 Goat