Category: poetry

‘The Friendzone Oasis,’ a Poem by a Friend

My friend, Gerda Hovius, who has a YouTube channel you should check out, on which she posts videos of herself strumming a guitar and singing covers of various pop songs, recently showed me her new poem, which I’d like to show you here and do a brief analysis of. Here’s the poem, in italics to distinguish her words from mine:

We were in a spontaneous situationship,
I am still lingering in an imaginationship,
But these ships don’t really sail,
Any further than on my mental curtain rail.

Although you specifically told me,
you see me more as a friend,
I have not released my projection on you because i was not ready to blend,

Reality in my fantasies i spun around us in my mind,
That is why i need space so i can unwind,
The mental tunnel longing for a lover that i made you out to be,
Instead of just accepting what is and allow us both to explore it freely.

The friendzone Oasis,
In which lies the basis,
Of exploring ourselves together in time and space…
And being in touch with a reality that is right in my face.

And now, for my analysis.

She invents two words in the first verse, “situationship” and “imaginationship,” whose falsity as words express the falsity of the relationship she found herself in, not the romantic relationship she’d been hoping for. After all, “these ships don’t really sail.” One’s “mental curtain rail” doesn’t go very far, either.

What words are more painful to hear from someone you have romantic, sexual feelings for than that “you see me more as a friend”? She “was not ready to blend,” that is, reconcile herself with such a rejecting feeling.

So often, reality is confused with one’s fantasies that are “spun around.” First she felt as a ship lost at sea, not going farther than a “mental curtain rail,” and now she’s lost in a “mental tunnel longing for a lover” that she can’t have in the man who has friendzoned her, which brings me to my next point.

Normally, we think of women friendzoning men, who in their heartbreak often react angrily, or even violently; one thinks of those disturbed incels. In her case, however, she in her heartbreak only “need[s] space so [she] can unwind.” This “friendzone Oasis” that he has put her in is one inside a dry, hot desert of disappointment and loneliness. This loneliness and heartbreak are a “reality that is right in [her] face,” that is, abruptly shoved in her space, imposed on her against her will.

As unhappy as she is, though, and however diminished she feels from losing the guy (note how she refers to herself as “i” in lower case), at least she isn’t violent or hateful about it, which is something those incels should learn from. Back in the 1990s, I went through an angry phase in my life similar to the incels, but however my dark thoughts may have been, I never acted on them, just as I’m sure she has had her dark thoughts (don’t we all?).

And that not acting on dark thoughts makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

Stages

When
kids
make
their
entrances on the world that’s all a stage, they may lose
themselves within the roles they play to please Mom and Dad.

They
strut
and
fret,
but if they protest too much, their drama-critic parents
will pan their poor performances, and they’ll be heard no more.

Yet,
when
they
play
too well, the line between actor and character is unseen,
and they exit the stage at death, never knowing who they are.

Beaks

Some, like Don Fanucci, want
to wet their beaks.
They peck at us,
expecting cash, and
quack and chirp until we pay.

Sometimes, their beaks let out
a song to charm our ears,
to make us all agree
to what they’d have us do,
so beaks can get at all the worms.

But worms don’t want beaks
snatching them, and
birdsong
may be pretty, but it
often isn’t honest tunes.

If we all had the strength
to stand together,
we’d scare away
those cheating tweets
and have a musical rest.

Slopes

When
we slide
down a hill
on a sled, we
don’t think of
the speed of the
slipping, the danger.

The
thrill of
the feeling
of freedom will
blind us to how we
will crash at the foot
of the hill of our pride.

A
few
decades
ago, we all
thought of the
West as invincible;
we saw no cracks in the ice.

The
liberal
Sisyphus
must roll a rock
up a hill, just to go
back and roll it again.
We always go down, not up.

All
of this
time, we
keep rolling
lower and lower,
no hope of ascent,
or of even staying put.

The
crash
at the
bottom is
coming, and
it’s going to hurt.
Will we be ready for it?

Tables

Many
have
plenty of food on their tables,
but
let
it
go
to
waste.

Others, with crumbs on their tables,
regard
every
bit
as
a
blessing.

Still others are lucky to have tables at all,
much
less
roofs
over
their
families’ heads.

The
Galilean
overturned all the tables that were in the temple,
those
of
men
who
sold
and
bought,

but
those
praying to Him at their dinner tables
don’t
give
all
that
much
to the poor.

How
might
the masses turn the tables on the rich,
and
set
our
tables
to sate all?

Thrones

She
had
the
big
chair, just
as so many
before her

used
that
seat
with
the intent to
take over and
plunder worlds.

One
may
sit
and
rest, while
many more
must fight

to
be
in
an
adequate
state of
existence.

One
can
sit
and
take it easy
on a throne
without gems,

and
the
men
and
women of the
world can be
seated as well.

So
we
in
an
abased state
must rise up
so all may sit.

Tightrope

If
I
lean
too much the one way, or too much the other, I will fall.

If
the
rope
went in a straight line, I could keep my balance well enough,

but
the
rope
keeps veering to the right, making me counterbalance left.

How
far
is
too far left, or not left enough? Is moderate “too balanced”?

One
has
to
walk it slowly, yet the human race’s time is running out.

We
can
not
stay on one side; we must go, yet to fall is certain death.

Flying Saucers

We see them
arrive on Earth in
flying saucers.

Humanoid,
yet bug-like, with
antennae,

as we see them,
they come in peace…
perhaps.

We see & hear
with fear, however,
firing

our guns at them.
And then, when they
shoot back,

we see them
as the aggressor, not
ourselves.

So many
think of aliens as
monsters,

yet once,
we saw a child
befriend ET.

Why can’t
we be that boy,
blind to

the bug eyes
and antennae, seeing
instead

what we
all have in common,
feeling love?