"Oh life! Can you blame me for making a scene?"

Disclaimer: this is an excerpt from an email i just sent to my love. I always feel wierd and cheap taking thoughts i wrote TO someone and putting them in a blog post but the point is, its how i feel and i dont think i could say it any better, or maybe i could, later, but right now these are my thoughts and i just happen to have written them first to a specific person but i dont see a point in rewriting it in a different way. i dont think you mind. i just had to say all that. read on:

I found this poem this morning by tony hoagland who i am big time liking these days (obviously, ive posted three poems of his in the last 24 hours, i might as well just dedicate the month to him) and it really got me all pumped up.
i. related.
because i fucking hate that phrase, "dont take it personal" (all the more offensive for its bad grammar).
I dont consider myself thin-skinned, but ive always, even as a kid, been too aware not to take things personally, ive always felt the stab in someones voice, seen the vulnerability in eyes.
and whats the point if you dont at least try to become personally invested in what you do and who you deal with?

"Oh life! Can you blame me for making a scene?"
...yeah.
yeah!


Personal

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

by Tony Hoagland