Do We Care About the Gatekeeper?
Have I told you how I’m feeling lately? No? Well, I won’t bore you with those details. You know what I hate? Actually, '“hate” is a strong word. It’s something I haven’t felt since I “grew up”. The last time I hated something was back in high school when I’d yell at my Mother, “I hate you!”. Then she’d come towards me and I’d run like my life depended on it. That was the last time I can recall feeling true hatred. Obviously it’s not a reliable emotion, because now my Mother is my best friend.
I’ve sidetracked, but I think the proper word I want to use is “disappoint”. So you know what I’m disappointed in? Ok, now with this one, my thoughts have focused on more general ideas because disappointment can cover so many areas. I’m disappointed in many things about the world. Mostly because we can’t seem to work together to solve our issues - even more so because I don’t feel like I’m personally doing enough. So this still is not the word I’m looking for.
You know what confuses me (other than not being able to find the right word to explain this to you)? When I flip through this notebook (in which I originally wrote this down - yes, I am aware that I am archaic and still use paper and pen), and I encounter an unfinished poem. For me, poetry is feeling (and to each their own). I judge a poem in how it makes me feel, rather than wondering how it made the author, or anyone else, feel. Reading or writing a poem is my own, selfish moment. So when I see that I left a poem unfinished, my first thought is
“Why did I stop?”
Was I writing down how I was feeling in the moment, but after reading it, decided that wasn’t how I was feeling? Perhaps it was a fleeting emotion. Or did witnessing the flesh of the letters scare me, realizing an emotional prisoner had escaped from my mind to the tips of my fingers, flowing down from pen to page? It happens you know! I don’t really know what I know - but my body does and I can’t control my body.
I am confused when I see abandoned stanzas. Clearly, I wanted to get something off of my chest and I don’t see how something unfinished could resolve anything. For instance, here is one of the unfinished:
The Gatekeeper predicted this
When I had faced him in my youth.
I did not ask for his guidance,
His will drowned out my indifference:
“You must hear what I have to say,
And reflect on these words spoken…”
Then it ends. What in the world did the Gatekeeper predict?! Here was a moment where I felt like I didn’t have a choice - which is silly, I (gratefully) always have a choice. So why feel that way? I was too scared to write it down, because as you can see, I didn’t write anything down. Poetry is so good at helping you express emotions, but can we also use it to manipulate how we feel? What if I finished this poem with whatever the Gatekeeper had to say, but I refused to accept it?
“Yes I know you just said that Mr. Gatekeeper, but this is how it’s going to work instead.”
Then the defiance in those words is soaked back into the pen, into my fingers, and finally makes its way into my mind. If that works, then that confirms those thoughts were always there - they just needed to be unlocked from that chamber of mine.
I know now that I am both the narrator and the Gatekeeper in that unfinished poem. I wonder if I had know it then. I also must have thought I was a lazy “youth” , or at least did not think abut my future as often as I should of. But I’m also incredibly thankful that I didn’t have to. To live back in those days where I only had to care about what I was going to do in the next moment - time was plentiful.
Then again, perhaps I was just distracted - taken away by the oven beeping or someone calling my name. My feelings about the Gatekeeper must have fizzled out, or transformed into another state that was let out by other means.
Sometimes I go back. When I do, you can bet your butt those feelings are strong. It’s like that dress you saw in the shop but it was $100. So you tell yourself,
“If I’m still thinking about it next month, then I’ll get it.”
Most of the time, you forget about it! But every once in awhile, that dress does NOT leave your mind. You want it as bad as when you first laid eyes on it - so you go back and happily spend that $100.
My $100 dress poems are me in my truest, unfiltered form. To come back and realize my feelings are just as strong and immoveable as before is both gratifying and somewhat concerning. It’s concerning because it means there may be something I haven’t resolved yet. It’s gratifying because it proves I can feel strongly about something. People that don’t feel strongly about matters scare me - and sometimes I’m scared my indifference makes me one of them. Oh no… full circle to the “indifferent youth” confronted by the Gatekeeper .
Maybe I will go back and finish it one day, or someone will find my notebook and finish it for me. Even better, they will leave it unfinished as well, only to have it be picked up by someone else to try to finish this poem. A poem brought to life by many minds, altered to fit ever-changing emotions. It would only be ruined if a computer got a hold of it and it was finished with an algorithm.
Maybe some things are just never meant to be finished, and that’s what that Gatekeeper was trying to hint at with their silence. They knew whatever they said, it wouldn’t change my mind.
Do you still want to know how I’m feeling?