give/take

Lately I've been feeling discontent in that I never feel like I'm creating (I hate saying that because it sounds like some insincere pretentious bullshit crap but I can't think of a better word) things. (Start mocking voice w/ body language that suggests I'm trying to be cooler than I am to impress others with my crappy half-baked philosophy) "Yeah I feel like I'm taking everything more than I'm giving." (end voice). Shut up Dallin.

Anyways.

I feel like I have so many good ideas stuck inside of me that never come out. I feel like I could contribute and interact more. I feel like I could be a lot more significant than I currently am, because other people won't give a rat's ass who I am and what I have to say if I never say it. I guess I feel like there's a lot of incongruency in what I think about and what I feel and the actual image that I project outside to others. Incongruency between what's on the inside and what's projected to others on the outside.

I found this poem in a Spanish book once by a Puerto Rican poet named Julia de Burgos. The poem is called "To Julia de Burgos" and it is supposed to be a letter written from the rawer, more honest version of herself to her social self. I have loved it ever since. I currently have a picture of her as the background on my phone. Here is an english translation. I like it better in Spanish because it seems to flow and rhyme better. Especially the line

Tú te rizas el pelo y te pintas; yo no;
a mí me riza el viento; a mí me pinta el sol.

and

En mí no, que en mí manda mi solo corazón,
mi solo pensamiento; quien manda en mí soy yo

It just isn't the same in English.

A link to the Spanish version.

To Julia de Burgos

Already the people murmur that I am your enemy
because they say that in verse I give the world your me.

They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.
Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voice
because you are the dressing and the essence is me;
and the most profound abyss is spread between us.

You are the cold doll of social lies,
and me, the virile starburst of the human truth.

You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me;
in all my poems I undress my heart.

You are like your world, selfish; not me
who gambles everything betting on what I am.

You are only the ponderous lady very lady;
not me; I am life, strength, woman.

You belong to your husband, your master; not me;
I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to all
I give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.

You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;
the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.

You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,
tied to the prejudices of men; not me;
unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante
snorting horizons of God’s justice.

You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;
your husband, your parents, your family,
the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,
the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,
heaven and hell, and the social, “what will they say.”

Not in me, in me only my heart governs,
only my thought; who governs in me is me.
You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people.
You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone,
while me, my nothing I owe to nobody.

You nailed to the static ancestral dividend,
and me, a one in the numerical social divider,
we are the duel to death who fatally approaches.

When the multitudes run rioting
leaving behind ashes of burned injustices,
and with the torch of the seven virtues,
the multitudes run after the seven sins,
against you and against everything unjust and inhuman,
I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.