Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

They say that words can't hurt you But that can't be any further from the truth Some words can slice your heart in two Some feel like eating a bowl of metal Other words taste like fluffy meringue pie Like soft, comforting words from a friend Words have the power to lift you up to the sky Or bury you alive under their weight Other words are like sour candies Sweet at first, until you ruminate To their sickly citrus centres Words can embrace you like a warm hug Or they can feel like an ice cold bath Entire relationships have begun, suffered, and Disintegrated because of a few words Our whole society hinges on a treatise of words A bundle of paper and ink Keeps criminals from wreaking havoc So when they say words can't break your bones Don't listen to them; words can amputate your spirit And leave you hobbling for weeks Or perhaps for the rest of your life Words can be love letters or death threats So don't ever claim That your words mean nothing

When life gives you lemons, make a lemon tart Put your soul into it and devise a new art Always thought I was brave, I was smart Now it feels like I'm back to the start Now the anxiety, it comes in big waves The pity, the anger, the blame that I crave To my heart and emotions, I am but a slave Tail 'tween my legs when I misbehave Whose love it is that I seek? When I'm senseless, drooling and weak Last night I was there, on the peak Now I'm a nobody, a freak, a geek A sad ol' person who can barely speak A mouse that spits a barely audible squeak I squeeze sour lemons into my eyes To eradicate all the parts of me I despise The squabbles, the indecency, the lies My heart rate soaring up to the skies Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone But what if I am the fool, alone? The thoughts in my head, a dull drone Talking to myself on the phone Life gave me lemons and I ate them whole Now I'm paying the price with my soul An anxious wreck, shipwreck, on the tide ...

I sometimes, probably too often, complain about my day job. The hours are too unpredictable, the pay too average, the students, at times, drilling a hole through my ears and directly into my brain with the constant questions, excuses, and regular torments. But I must realize how far I have come from my very first "real" job, which I want to recount in writing, so I remind myself that life is not all that bad right now. My first job was at a very popular Canadian movie theatre chain. I was ecstatic when I got the job. It was right before Christmas time during my senior year in high school. Back then, I didn't have to worry about paying trivial bills, and didn't mind the concept of "rent," so I planned to use 100% of my earnings on truly important necessities, such as fast fashion and Burger King whopper meals. It was a truly exciting time. On the first day of training, the boss (who seemed intimidating at the time, but I now realize more resembled a ba...

I admit it: I'm guilty. Guilty of being a self-proclaimed feminist. It is unfortunate that we are taught nowadays to attach shame and embarrassment to the term "feminist." When I tell people I'm a feminist, sometimes they chuckle and say, "okay, feminazi" or "I don't agree with feminism" or simply "I don't like that term." I don't think that most people truly understand what the term means, so let's take a mini crash course through history to piece it all together. "Feminism" as we know of the term today sprouted in the late 1800s to early 1900s. In North America at the time, women were not allowed to vote and were not considered as "persons" under the law, meaning they had little to no financial freedom and political influence. Female leaders joined together to fight this injustice and gained suffrage rights throughout the 1910s. This was the first wave of feminism. Later, when swarms of husbands ...

I am obsessed with life, and with finding the meaning of it all. This is why I adore poetry and literature. Certain philosophical quotes stick in my psyche and I can fish them out whenever I feel like I am drowning in my uncertainties. It is also why I love music. Certain songs, lyrics, instruments, and even sounds whisk me back to different places, different people and times in my life. Anytime I want to escape the present, I can turn on the stereo. But poetry, philosophy and music are not the meaning of life. It is just an interpretation. In fact, the older I get foggier the meaning of life becomes. When I was little, I had no critical thinking skills. Most kids do not. We swallow up everything we are told by the authorities towering over us (teachers, parents) like candies. The first time I learned about "heaven" was in the fifth grade, in Catholic School. My teacher taught religion class every afternoon, and we discussed what happens when we die: we go to the pearly gat...

As a young person, my attitude towards life, others, and myself in general is constantly in flux. And I'm learning, over and over again, the old-age adage "if you keep doing things the same way, things will stay the same" (or something along those lines). It's true: if you don't change your attitude, your behaviour remains the same, and you are stuck in a never-ending replay of a car crash that you can easily avoid, but choose not to. From various life experiences, these are the "Seven Deadly Attitudes," if you will, that might not necessarily keep you locked in purgatory, but which will make your life on Earth feel hellish. 7. Anger No one likes an angry person. Someone who is perpetually red-faced is not nice to be around, but he is mostly harming himself. Having an angry attitude towards life means, roughly: lashing out at others and using anger to disguise more vulnerable emotions, such as pain and sorrow. Basically, you puff up like a porcupine...

Hooray. I graduated from the notoriously soul-sucking, snobbish, yet also beautiful and prestigious establishment that is the University of Toronto. When asked, "what have you learned in your four years?" nothing remotely related to academia comes to mind. I could say that I learned about wacky political philosophers and their undying sexist theories. I could tell you that I acquired "critical thinking skills," improved my writing and grammar, and can now read a Victorian novel in one day without a problem. But the things that I was taught in my classes are not the things that have stuck with me the most. All my various experiences of growing up and "discovering myself" in the maze of U of T can be summed up in one lesson: Sometimes, the things that are good for you don't feel good, and the things that feel great are leading you down the wrong path. This is an elementary lesson that we learn as four-year-olds. "Eat your broccoli, Susan! Even i...

At ten at night a fair lady releases her flowing hair And opens her window to let in fresh air Not knowing that a fairy has come in with the breeze Who will describe all that he senses and sees The fairy, hid behind a bucket of salts Watches her as she exposes her faults The chipped red paint on the nail of her toe Revolts the poor fairy, but he refuses to go For she starts to unzip her speckled blue top And her two heaving breasts break out and drop Never a more putrid sight did he see Than nipples the size of mulberry trees She then removes her lashes, her eyebrows, her lips Then, yawning, into her bed she sleepily slips The fairy, wanting to take a closer look at the doll Flutters up to her ear and begins to crawl He travels right into her big, waxy ear And discovers great galaxies there In her head she has worlds so vast and sublime That make him forget the odiousness of her slime She has novels and poetry stored to the roof of her skull Mathematics, biology, a...

2016 is a big year for me and for most friends my age. 2016 means I'll transform from "Olga Taratuta, High School Graduate" to "Olga Taratuta, B.A." 2016 holds my future in its sweaty palms. The words "job," "money," "graduate school," and "scholarships" seem to have dominated my pool of vocabulary. 2016 is where I become a real adult, not the OSAP mooching fraud that I am now. But adulthood is a scam. It is a fable told by society to keep the economy in check. Adults are seduced by money. We become promiscuous, lurking the streets to make a buck.  My original goals for 2016 were to: A) Get into graduate school B) Get a job C) Get an apartment D) Save, save, save! Then I realized that all those goals are money-driven to some degree. They are but cookie cutter resolutions, such as "exercise more" or "lose 5 pounds." I will not make money by aiming to make money. I have realized this ...

Here is a thing that you may not know about me. I hate my face. And not in a casual sort of way that is modest and attention-seeking. The self-hate for my face is real. Amid all my insecurities, from some of my unpleasant personality traits to my guilt of not working out enough (whoops!), my face, unfortunately (and quite shallowly) takes first place. Perhaps writing down this insecurity, taming it, and confining it to a series of paragraphs will help me see how senseless it is to fret so much about something, that, frankly, is irrelevant to my worth as a person, and how my obsessive insecurity might, ironically, make me a more irritable and spiteful person instead. Ever since the age of twelve, I have had acne. You know, the usual teenager "T-zone" acne on the forehead, cheeks, chin, and occasional nose and neck. Except maybe a tad worse than the "usual." That means, for the past nine years of my life, I have woken up every single day being self-conscious. I don...

I had a dream that I was walking through a deserted subway train terminal. The hallways were winding and there were no direction signs anywhere, no maps, and no points of reference. It did not seem that late at night, but every underground store was closed. The place smelled like the eerie remains of all the souls who passed through the terminal that day: baby powder, cinnamon buns, vanilla scented cigarillos, sweaty underarms after working a long day at the construction site... the place smelled, most of all, like aching ligaments and the longing to drown oneself after spending a day sitting in an office. Drown in whiskey, or an odd romance, or insanity. Everyone who passed through the bus terminal that day had wanted to drown. I could also hear the echoes of stale voices, which were happy just a few hours before, but now seemed like ghosts. Children's laughter, recovering addicts spitting loudly into the garbage cans, the rusty wheels of old strollers squeaking through the windin...

Nietzsche was an interesting guy. Other than his rampages about God being dead and his morbid existentialist rants, I kind of like him. What struck me most interesting in Beyond Good and Evil was his critique of Christianity. Okay, well, I like to think of myself as a Christian, so I wasn't very much convinced by his longing for complete obliteration of religion. Nietzsche mentions that Christianity has become a religion of resentment, because it started off as a religion of the poor, and its doctrines emphasize the goodness of the meek and the corruption of the rich and powerful. Hence, Christians are jealous of those who flaunt their excess, and wish them to hell (according to him). Christian "anger" hence stems from envy. What he failed to point out was that the rich can also be jealous of the poor...and that in fact the powerful are weaker because they are always afraid of having their goods stolen, while the poor have nothing and so they have nothing to lose. The Chr...

Socrates: I know that I know nothing. While I was in high school, I didn't really think about life's big questions. I don't blame the school system for it- I was just not in that state of mind yet. Everything that I learned seemed to pass right through me. I didn't bother chewing the precious bits of life advice that were handed to me by my teachers. I simply devoured the information, and it remained in my stomach, undigested, only to be regurgitated on the final exam. Then once summer began, I forgot everything that I had learned. I remember looking at the clock, praying for class to end, hoping for the semester to finish, hoping that I could get out of high school and live in a world without detentions and compulsory math courses. Now I'm in university, majoring in the humanities. Everything that was taught to me during my four years in high school was revised, summarized, and dismissed during my first day of classes. Everything that I had known was erased. Ev...

Over the years, I have met many people. I have also known many others. Then there are are the few who I had befriended, and for some period of my life they were my role models, companions, and temporary acquaintances with whom I identified with. And the more people I got to know, the more I started to realize how much we are all alike. I'm not sure whether this revelation is a result of my slow progress into emotional maturity, or perhaps it is a fleeting thought. But it dawned upon me how truly messed up we all are. As a hopeless romantic and a stingy perfectionist, I have sailed through life, thus far, searching for a seedling of sanity in this raging sea of lunatics. Alas, the water would never settle. Little did I know that the water was calm all along, and the unforgiving sea was just my own reflection. I can say, without exaggerating, that I have much fewer friends now than ever before. I have become the person that I had loathed as a whiny teen- I am the person who ins...

I recently stumbled upon an advertisement featuring a young woman with her eyes covered by a Kraft Dinner box. She is licking her lips, and the caption reads "a guilty pleasure." Beside this slogan is a box of macaroni and cheese. For some reason this advertisement shocked and offended me. It took me a while to decipher the root of my angst. I finally got it: it gets me mad that the term "guilty pleasure" even exists, because you should never feel guilty for being happy (unless you get happy from twisted and possibly illegal things, in which case you should seek help). My only conclusion from this strange commercial is that we live in a society in which it is deemed normal, and even necessary, to feel guilty for doing anything that is remotely pleasurable. This is most obvious in food and diet advertising. Their message is that you should eat lots of cheap junk food, feel guilty and remorseful for doing so, and then sweat out your tears at an expensive gym, t...

Here is a little wish list of mine: I wish I could tame my emotions with a lasso. I wish I agreed to things without picking a fight. I wish I were more accepting of others. I wish that my face would not reveal my emotions so obviously. I wish I were less cold. I wish I quit holding grudges. I wish that every word that came out of my lips was firstly filtered of toxins. I wish I had no bad habits. I wish I stopped worrying about the past, present, and future simultaneously. I wish I loved myself. I wish I stopped being my own worst enemy. I wish I stopped blaming myself for everything. I wish I saw things for the way they really are. I wish I smiled more. I wish I were just a little bit sweeter? Okay, so I’ve established that I’m cold and not sweet. That definitely means I’m not a delightful scoop of ice cream. Maybe I’m like frozen beef. Raw. Filling. And can also leave you with a nasty bruise if you’re struck with it. Most people succumb to t...

When I was seven years old, I got three dollars a week of allowance. I usually spent it on bubblegum or really cheap stuffed animals. Then one day, when I was with my parents at Wal-Mart, I snooped through the "summer toys" section to come across the most incredible toy ever, in my mind- an insect catcher. It was made of clear plastic and the lid had an opening that you could slide open, then snap shut, in order to catch the bugs. There was a net on one side of the container so that the bugs would be able to breathe. I was flabbergasted at the idea that such a wonderful invention existed, but I knew that my parents would never buy me this toy. They would tell me to get a Ziploc bag or tupperware instead. Those caught bugs too. But this was a special bug catcher and it cost fifteen dollars. It took me four good months of saving up allowance in order to buy this insect catcher (I spent a bit of it on bubblegum, so it slowed down the "saving" process). At last, I pro...

For as long as I can remember, I've had the same unachievable goal, which I believed to be my life's purpose: to achieve perfection. I wanted to be a straight A student, an idol for the younger generation, the prettiest girl on the block, the girl with the perfect boyfriend, the perfect balance of everything that is wonderful and exquisite. Little did I realize that perfection is just a myth, like Big Foot or the cookie monster. I now type this blog post, feeling both shock and excitement, about my new found discovery- that the thing I've been trying so hard to attain all these years does not exist. It's a big pill to swallow, but hopefully a glass full of water and reality will ease the pain. The biggest problem with trying to be perfect is having the constant feeling of guilt and failure. Since perfection is an illusion, I'm chasing after nothing. I feel guilty for not being perfect and, by this definition, I'm a failure because I'm not perfect. This sou...

A while back, I wrote about the things I looked for in my "other half" ( http://www.olgapoetrytree.blogspot.ca/2013/01/on-origin-of-love.html )- respect, intellectual stimulation, devotion... These things are important, but now I'm starting to think that I'm looking for something much deeper than that. I am on a personal quest to discover myself as a student, a daughter, a writer, a woman, a human being with qualities that contribute to society. And at the same time I wish that my quest will intertwine with someone else's, and that this someone will help me on my quest as much as I will help him. A while back, I gave up. I forgot about my personal quest and I got lost in a forest of self-destruction and defeat. Now that I am getting back on my wobbly legs, like a newborn calf, I am starting to realize that the person I want to share my journey with has to do much more than just fulfill my basic requirements. His high paying career path is a plus, but not a must. H...

In high school, the "university experience" was mystical. It was something that was on everyone's tongues throughout senior year. We'd fantasize about the parties we'd attend, the friends we'd meet, and the freedom we'd have away from public education. We'd go to university fairs and university representatives would come to our high school, shoving colourful pamphlets in our faces featuring smiling students sitting in poppy fields with books in their hands. University. A new chapter in my life. A step into adulthood. And it is nothing as I expected it to be, nothing like the candied university booklets I received by the dozen in high school. Here are some raw facts about university life, and the things I learned during my freshman year: The "university experience" is mostly one of cramming for tests and exams. In high school, you may have had a test every now and then, and exam periods once during a 5-month semester. In university, you ha...