Tag: conformity

To redeem us

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

[…] the point of disagreement is not that I like his body better than he likes mine, but that he likes my mind less than I like his.
Lytton Strachey, from a letter to Leonard Woolf

I don’t believe in unicorns
and beautiful boys entering the picture mid-spring
to redeem love—
or whatever that spree in meadowland is called—
only to turn yet another string of random labels
that our days need to progress
from one misstep to the next.
Besides, I’m not well-adjusted—I wish I were,
or perhaps not; maybe it’s better the way I am—
unlike all the pre-highbrows walking down Charing Cross Road
on rainy Sundays; I’m still struggling with the difference
between pleasing you and joining your tribe.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Birds of a feather

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

I’ve heard that if you look like a duck
and you quack like a duck,
then you are a duck, even if the rest of the flock
sees you as an odd—let alone a dead—one,
and yet, the eccentrics and the hopeless aside,
few things feel as unwelcoming as the world
of yellow rubber.

I keep talking

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

I have nothing to say, and yet I keep talking,
meticulously combining nouns, personal pronouns, and verbs,
adding an occasional adjective here and there, so as to hide
in the multitude of dependent clauses—each introduced with the most unique
subordinating conjunction I can think of—my utter inability to form and express
an original thought of my own (it’s a bit like in the kitchen
when you dream of your own signature dish,
or at least a decent phoritto or some other fusion food,
and you end up reheating a ready-made meal, glad
you didn’t burn it).