Time

It's been a year and a day since I lost someone I knew. Or thought I knew. It will likely always plague me, the uncertainty of whether I knew him at all.

The fact of that loss is something I have come up to and run away from numerous times. I don't do well with loss. I don't do well with change. I don't do well with grieving. And I keep coming upon the notion that it is necessary to accept it, while conversely convincing myself that maybe it isn't and I'm just exaggerating that loss or change.

Similarly, it's been a month since I discovered that the person I thought I knew, I in fact did not.

New questions to ask. New losses to grieve. New plans to build.

It's funny how so much can happen.

The question of do you ever really know anybody? bothers me frequently.

The question of change vs. constant in a person? so often confounding.

The question of what do I put above what? exhausts me most of the day.

Which hand to play?
Which hand to play?
Which hand to play?

Us children and our silly games.

Medea

Many years ago, I studied the play "Medea" by the brilliant Euripides.

I think few people on this planet love that piece as I do, and have. And it stuck with me. Perhaps for good reason. It's funny how themes and concepts come and go in one's life like the tide to the beach.

Most people demonize Medea. How dare she?
But betrayal is a funny thing. It makes monsters of us. It makes us bend and harden in ways we never thought heretofore possible.

I don't know why I'm always drawn to revenge stories. It's like "The Cask of Amontillado", another favourite of mine.

I am not horrified by their actions. I am on the cheer-leading squad.

Jaime says it's not my style. That I am full of toxic daydreams and compassionate action. Blah blah blah.

People mock me for loving the 90's movie "Wild Things." They think it's stupid pop-culture teen fare with some lesbian and threesome scenes thrown in to spice it up. They are wrong. They don't give it the credit it deserves. "Wild Things" is actually a modernized and more youthful revision of "Medea." I have an A-grade paper from SFU to prove it. Obviously they took out the whole killing the kids thing, because the main characters are teenagers themselves. And they added some extra dimensions, made it more of a long con, after all Medea only had a day. But it's the same dynamics and the same roles and the same idea.

A step and calculation
The rhythm of the dance
Ford's game
Requires patience

It's 3:32
And when it's time
For your specter
To drift my way
I put on the smile
Practiced soft voice
And you won't know
The difference
Between what's real
And what it is
That I disarm
You into believing

Underneath

Don't judge a book
By it's cover
They say

Don't judge me
By my smiling face
Or fractured heart

Don't assume
That what it is
Is what you see

You'd be surprised
By what you'd find
If you looked
Underneath