Priorities

This admittedly has absolutely nothing to do with airplanes, aviation or giant hunks of pressurized metal, aluminum and composite materials blasting through the sky at sickeningly fast speeds.  Instead, I've been spending time thinking about college and how I felt so connected to the arts then... and how uncultured I've become since graduating.

I have a very fond memory of my friend Maggie and I going to the Slam Poetry World Championship that happened to be held in Charlotte, NC one year.  It was, in a brief synopsis, mind-blowingly amazing and awe inspiring.  Through my recent harping on times-gone-by, I remembered a slam poem called "Like" by Mike McGee.  The other day, I watched a clip of him performing the poem on YouTube and that has set me on a newfound course to reconnect with my creative, more artsy self.

So, for you today, is a slam I wrote about understanding priorities in life.  It is by no means good, but I'd like to think it's a pretty solid baby step into a literary world I don't fully understand, but can't wait to learn more about.

Fly high and stay safe :)

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Prioritize.
A possibly-awful, maybe semi-decent slam by Ben Kaufman.

I decided to start doing some things for me.
It’s not that I don’t want to do things for other people
it’s more that I’ve been doing things for other people my whole life.
I have the chance, so I’m making some changes.

I rise with the sun now
and diligently set my place at the kitchen table.
The coffee maker drips and I slip cream into a mug
that’s been patiently waiting empty next to piping hot pancakes.

I don’t know if this is the breakfast of champions
but I do know that there is nothing to win here except
my own heart so I’m going to eat what it tells me I’m feeling.

In the car I roll down the windows and scream along to the soundtrack
of my life that is playing on the radio.
These days I think I can relate to
any song I hear and
I get lost in the music maybe a little too easily since

I don't actually remember where I am

or where I am trying to go.
The beauty, though, of getting lost in sound is

that when I find myself again, I understand, if only for a moment, that the
meaning of true perfection
is realizing that when I felt discontent in the past,
it was only my mind’s way of saying
“Hey, it’s time for a new song.”

I think – and I’m scared to admit it -
that this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.
Because anger and disappointment are
just paradigms that paralyze
and I’ve been paralyzed
but I am not paralyzed now.

You have to understand this:
I’m up before the sun because I don’t need its rays to be enlightened.
This whole thing called life is worth the sometimes-struggle.

Somewhere, I know that it’s in people to do what’s right
Even if they have to fight for it and
even if they can’t see it in themselves,
I know that it’s in there.
And you know how I know?
Because I force myself to remember.
I remember that for every moment of inexplicable bullshit, there were a few moments that were so inexplicably beautiful
that it was worth every wrong turn I made to get there
just so I could see it with my own eyes
and feel it with my own heart.

I call those moments near-life experiences.

They don’t happen often, but I sure as hell remember when they do.
When I recall one, I relive, regenerate and revitalize
I simply redo
and it remakes.
Because that’s what it takes, after all
to make the good seem great to someone like me.
There’s just no room for hate and
back in an instant I’m staring at my very full plate…

…of pancakes, that is…
And so I eat.

You know, sometimes it’s worth it to be a little unhappy…

I decided I’d start doing some things for me lately.
I had the chance, so I made some changes.
I didn’t know it then, but the changes made me.