Olga's Poetry & Thoughts

The tinsel on the tree Chocolate in the bowl Santa on the mantle Streets engulfed in snow This Christmas is a special One; I look back on a year Filled with bliss and chaos And pockets of despair I wrap my woe in tinsel Eat candy to sweeten My heart; look at the Snow out the window To drown in bitter cold I always thought I was Made of ice, and that Doom was at my door For who could love a frigid woman, who could Melt a polar soul? This Christmas is a special One; this Christmas I'm not cold This year I'm fuelled by Sparks flaming in my Chest; I'm heated by My will to move on To embrace the year ahead

"Most of us, even if only for two minutes in our lives, have experienced at some time or another an inexplicable and random sense of bliss, unrelated to anything that was happening in the outside world..." (Elizabeth Gilbert) That moment of bliss happens from time to time It happened to me today when I was walking through the forest Fully feeling everything with my five senses Feeling the gravel and crunch of dead brown leaves beneath my boots Hearing the creaky moans of the old trees in the wind Seeing hues of fire, gold, and bronze Smelling the morbidly sweet smell of decay Tasting the moist air on this October day If October were a person, she would be beautiful But not beautiful in the mortal, conventional sense She would have chestnut brown hair, ragged Tangled with twigs and birch bark Her face would be hollow, delicate, like petals in the fall Her dress would be tattered, drooping at her shoulder Moths, caterpillars, and spiders caught in the fibers o...

Murder is not an accident It is premeditated, filled with cruel intent Not a clumsy tumble down the stairs Murder is not guilty until proven innocent You are not jailed for being at the scene of the crime Murder is not an error in judgment: it is malicious It is not the innocent mess-up of forgetting to take your pill Or using a condom that is defective Murder is forcing women to use coat-hangers Or to seek an unlicensed doctor in the back alleys In order to rid themselves of something they never asked for Murder is silencing the voices of coherent adults Who have the right to vote To work To run for president Murder is telling them that they do not have the right To their own wombs Due to out-of-context words written in an old book And the bloody and destructive need to keep up traditions Traditionally, murder can be an accident When a woman goes to work, does sports, when she is pregnant And has a miscarriage by accident Traditionally, murder can be guilty until...

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...

I have two lovers named Chaos and Joe One is predictable and the other's not so Chaos is wild, with a scraggly old beard Joe has fetishes that seem a bit weird Chaos has issues and takes pills of all sorts Joe likes the usual: a fine beer and sports Chaos makes me feel like one big mess While Joe makes me pitiful and depressed They still love me, sending me flowers and cake Hoping I'll be in their beds when I awake Alas, I can only exist in one place in time With Chaos and vodka, or Joe and red wine Will Cupid please strike one heart of the two To save me from this sad pit of blues? Joe, oh Joe, I see us marrying one day I see us on rocking chairs with hair all grey Chaos, dear love, I see adventures await That will never land me in Heaven's pearly gates Sometimes I want to watch the sunset with Joe Other times I want Chaos curled up at my toes We want it all: a chaotic stability A paradoxical, magnetic indivisibility We want the Chaos that life throws...

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...

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...

We are disconnected stars; artificial constellations A mind set, a fluke, a trick of the imagination We are lines connecting but never intersecting We do what's expected but are never expecting We are tied to each other one day, severed the next We are mere pawns, but think we are blessed Fingers in each other's palms, we are whole Eyes connected, we make love soul to soul A warm word, a kind slip of the tongue A kiss, a relief, a reminder that we are still young But the moment we part, an ocean divides us And a mystical force in the universe guides us The moment that our lines disconnect The moment that our souls don't reflect Is the moment we flee from each other, and fast Lightyears apart, we say the past is the past All the faces I've seen, touched, caressed All the hearts that I've cried to, lied to and undressed All the stars that I've met that produced something new A beautiful constellation in the sky, a dark blue All the friendshi...

Waves lapping on the sandy shoreline Grains of sand stuck to the bottom of my feet Developing a slight sunburn on the back of my neck And on the side of my arms Instantly cooled off as I heal my wounds in the lake Not just the burns, but also the stress, the internal chaos My senses acute to the extreme As if in a dream I can taste the oxygen streaming out of the trees I can hear the breeze I can hear a cricket from a mile away And a fat cat purring on a windowsill in a house across the lake If only I could retire permanently in summer Swim in sangria parties As the days swim into each other 'Til I forget whether it's Sunday, Tuesday, or a Statutory Holiday This is the luxury that has been granted to me this summer Wasting time, chasing time, doesn't matter Time has retired, too

I have started reading a book called "Help, Thanks, Wow." It is basically a how-to guide for prayer, geared towards spirituals and skeptics alike. The book tries to answer the difficult question: How do we pray? The author, Anne Lamott, recalls her childhood, growing up in an atheist household where only rock bands were worshipped and the New York Times was a temple. Feeling alone, lost, and caught in existential despair, Lamott "snuck off" into the attic to pray to God for help. Prayers for help humble us. They make us feel that the world is out of our control. The cosmos does not act in accordance with our wishes, and our prayers are not answered in the way we would like them to be. Thomas Merton's prayer reads: "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me" (Lamott 33). Just by reading the "Help" chapter, I realized why I have trouble with uncertainty. Because it is admitting defeat. It is admittin...

How easy it is to wish someone ill How hard it is to smile as they outshine you How easy it is to let anger fuel your words How hard it is to let forgiveness reign How easy it is to insult and betray How easy it is to get carried away How hard it is to be humble Humble words poison your lips How hard it is to ignore the pain How easy it is to ignore your blessings How hard it is to thank and pray How easy it is to not think at all How hard it is to work and not get your way How hard are the nights when your pillow's wet with tears How hard are the days when they turn into years How hard is but life, how hard it must be How easy it is to forget that you are free As a flame in the wind, as a dove in the sky To dust you'll return and as dust you will fly How hard it is to conceive that you're earth and the sky How easy it is to forget those who cry For you, those who love you so much It is easy to dismiss their love as a crutch How hard it is ...

I remember the days when I was scared of ghosts After watching a marathon of poltergeist movies About hauntings in strange homes My juvenile friends and I couldn't get to sleep And we'd squeal at every creak creak  On the floor board I'd sleep with a night light on  The one with Winnie the Pooh reading a story to Piglet Yet I'd still lose sleep I was so scared of the ghosts that were out to get me Now I want the ghosts to get me I don't even understand what I was scared of I want ghosts to haunt my house I want ghosts to transcend their world and show their white faces Hell, I want poltergeists to mess my whole room up Because, see, if ghosts don't exist Then why should anything invisible exist, too? What you see is what you know But I don't see love, so how do I know it's there? What if love is just a ghost?  What if "love" is what we label that chemical reaction in our brains that sparks fondness? And...

"H uman beings are not like sheep, and even sheep are not indistinguishably alike" - Mill I got lost on the way to adulthood. It is easy to get lost in this world. To drown in a sea of facts and statistics. To get beaten over the head with estranged opinions. To get into quarrels over our views on religion, violence, sex, education, morality, this and that, each person trying to prove that he is right, each person trying to demean the other because of their insatiable need for always being right. Although it would take some god to determine whether humanity is making the right decisions or not, one can always decide what is best for himself.  But it's easy to get swayed. I've wanted to be a teacher ever since I was in elementary school. But in university I panicked. I was told that the job market for teaching sucks, that English majors will never amount to anything, and that I am not actually as special or smart as thought I was because everyone is a uniq...

I have a dysfunctional relationship with Time Sometimes I like to play hide and seek with Time Time hides, and I try to find it I see it peeking from behind the curtains But I treat Time like a child, and I say 'Time, oh Time! Where are you?' Time just stands still, trying not to be seen And with Time frozen, I have all the time I can dream of At other times, I wish Time would move along I look at the clock as it mocks me with its tick tock As I'm stuck in a store folding socks And I dream of a day when I will be a somebody A businesswoman with a brief case and a somebody at her side And one day I can create another somebody Alas, it takes time to get promoted from being a nobody Sometimes I wish Time would turn back Because in retrospect everything seems serene What was once a heart ache is now petty What was at one time a death note is now a joke How I wish Time would comfort the poor younger me Time would say, 'Time moves on! Time heals all scar...

It was a kiss by a stream In a lopsided dream That brought back the days Of an amiable phase My heart like a machine When I saw your name on my screen My heart pumping oil But my love wouldn't broil For I did it all wrong And I worried too long Like a bird sings its song I should've fluttered along It was never love, not at all For to love is to crawl On a cold basement floor To a fiery red door But to know it's all right For the love glows so bright I just took any old fruit That looked kind of cute I'd grab a fresh pear And show it great care Then I'd drink some sweet liquor And put "love" on the sticker Of this useless green pear That I devoured to air It was a kiss by a stream In a lopsided dream That bore the fruit of my sin And crawled like ants on my skin

It is hard for me to believe that twenty years have passed. Two whole decades. A new generation of kids have entered elementary school. Kids who don't have a clue about Gwen Stefani, Walkmans, or the joys of MSN Messenger. I feel old and yet so ridiculously young at the same time. Twenty is a difficult age: I'm old enough to potentially drink myself to sleep every night, but I'm still too young to be taken seriously in the workforce. Therefore, for me, twenty is all about self-discipline. Having the option to do something doesn't mean you should do it. So I'll stay in school, spending countless hours slaving over essays which will be bell curved anyway, in order to get a piece of paper that may or may not give me a head start in "the real world" (twenty year olds don't really live in the real world, you see). For now, reality as a twenty year old can be summarized in a few simple bullet points: Frozen pizza  Debating between going to class or goin...

Looking in from the outside, they're smoking and drinking wine On the patio, and they look so conspicuously happy, that I know They are not happy at all. The man has a cigar protruding from his lips And the lady is wearing a tattered red gown and a frown on her cheek. She buries her crow's feet under a nest of expensive makeup and gloss. And they ask each other, how has your day been? And they each respond, Good, while twirling their empty forks in the air, searching for ghost spaghetti. Oh, why hasn't the food arrived yet? I'm feeling rather sweaty from work. It's been years since the children moved out, so an empty house bears no Promise of passion; and the lady wakes up to the same man every day, And she no longer feels a warm prickle in the corner of her stomach. The blissful lurch of excitement, that feeling you used to get when You were a child and you saw your mother picking you up at the end Of the week from summer camp, and you memo...

She’s different ‘cause she talks about politics, She’s not one of those cookie cutter chicks. ‘Cause every word that escapes her lips, Is one-of-a-kind; a witty, rare eclipse. When the sun shines upon her hair, It glows so brightly it seems to flare. Sorry to say, she’s just like everyone… Like every other girl roasting under the sun On that very same beach, cookie cutter girls Who all think they’re unique gifts to the world. All you have to do is mix sugar and dough, Then sprinkle some differences and then you’ll know Being a big girl, an adult, you see, Is not when you realize you’re bound to be free. No, growing up is knowing that you’re like everyone else, ‘Cause everyone struggles, succumbs to impulse, Everyone cares about themselves and nobody else.

I looked into the mirror and did not believe That this was actually me Just a heavy black cloud with teardrops for eye sockets, pouring down my chin The rolls of misery drip drip drip drip Mascara streaks, not streaking, no, but eating Eating my cheeks once so perfectly dabbed with rosy blush Eating them away like acid, Soot Black Puffy eyes so sad So miserable So Monstrous. Is this actually me or is this some fictional creature in a dream? Like a ghost from the Shining like the dead woman from room 217 like a death eater swallowing souls of the innocent like an undead soldier Like Death. Is it possible to look like death? Because that is what I saw. If death had a face, it would be that of mine in that polished mirror with the mint green walls on the sides and water on the countertops drowning my textbooks, drowning my sorrow, spilling onto the floor and just pure misery etched into every crevice of my face, every pimple like a canyon of b...