Choosing Other Than the Discomfort
In this hub I'll share a poem that I wrote about the choice between an uncomfortable and a comfortable option. Below that you can get some insight into what caused me to write this and what I was thinking as I worked on it.
Burlesque Can Be Comfortable or Uncomfortable
Choosing Other Than the Discomfort
Why choose discomfort?
It’s clear she is trying to be different.
Versatile, varied
But why choose discomfort?
Why hide beauty beneath beautiful tight trappings?
Why trap the self in ruffles?
Why cover so much without relaxing?
And reveal things that aren’t the self?
She stands erect
In partial profile
In shadow, this looks like torture
Elongated lines carve her body into pieces
A firmness sets on her turned jaw
She is locked into this decision
A tight grip on a thin prop
A thin frame tucked into a tight stance
She chooses this discomfort
She looks askance
But the humor is lost on her
The rigidity is paramount
Will she be uncomfortable forever?
Would tears soften her skin or only toughen her?
Would silence allow her the space to choose differently?
Would a moment matter?
Sometimes a single choice seems to last forever
But the truth is that there are only five minutes left
She can choose differently
Beyond penance is possibility
Another choice is always available
Even when it absolutely seems that there is no way out?
Beyond the Poem
What did you think about when you read Choosing Other than Discomfort? Did you think about the times in your own personal life when you felt trapped in the way that you’d presented yourself to the world but really did have a choice to change? Or did you think about the way that women choose uncomfortable clothing and certain behaviors in order to be attractive and likeable even when it isn’t comfortable? These are the images that I was trying to conjure up as I crafted this particular poem. It is about the individual woman in the poem but it is about what it is like to be a woman and to be a person and to have to keep choosing yourself again and again.
The poem itself was inspired by watching a model who was posing at a particular event I’d attended. Sometimes I attend sketch events at local bars in the city. I don’t usually draw but instead take my notebook and do little “sketches” in words. Sometimes these sketches turn into stories or poems, as in this case. And sometimes they are just writing practice.
In this case, the real situation was that the model was posing in a really uncomfortable position. She had to hold the pose for a certain length of time since everyone in the room was sketching her in that pose. You could tell almost as soon as she’d taken the pose that she regretted being frozen in it and wished that she chose differently. The truth is that she could have chosen to move. I’ve seen other models break the pose, apologize and resituate themselves. However, she chose to stick with her decision.
The image of this woman stuck with me as I revised this poem. It really conjured up the way that we sometimes make choices that are not comfortable and we can choose differently but for whatever reason we feel like we can not. This can be small or big but I think it’s a feeling that most of us are familiar with. Are you?
Yoga Balances Comfort/ Discomfort
5 More of My Poems
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At 20, At 30 is a poem about aging. It is written line by line, alternating between the experience of something at age 20 and how that has changed upon reaching age 30. And it ends with a look towards the future beyond age 30. - Little Miss Muffet: A Poem
This poem is part of a series of poems that I am working on. In each poem, I take the words of a well-known nursery rhyme and incorporate them into a new poem. By adding my own words, I change the original meaning of the nursery rhyme, usually showin - Neither Here Nor There: A Poem
Neither Here Nor There is a poem that I’ve written to explain that feeling that adolescents often have of not fitting in anywhere and yet so desperately wanting to. I have tried to capture the memories of what it was like to be young and to feel like - She Sees C's: The Mary Quite Contrary Poem
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