#so please i hope you enjoyed this admittedly incomplete analysis of a poem on the underground wall here (not the Simon & Garfunkel song)

[noraqrosa]

i live in NYC and often when i have to take the subway i see poetry on the walls of the train cars, sometimes of the graffiti'd type (always a fun read), sometimes officially posted up by the MTA. today i saw a poem which i've seen before on the train, but only really started thinking about now.

"Everything" by Srikanth Reddy

looking up the poem, its author had this to say about it:

This poem is called "Everything." And I wrote it because I was thinking about the cliche that everybody has their love story waiting to happen because there's somebody walking out there in the world who's perfect for them and you just have to meet them and then the love story starts. And I was thinking, well, actually it might be that the real great love stories are when those two people never meet and don't have a chance to screw things up.

Source

one thing i think about often is the connections we all have between each other as people in the world. i firmly do believe that every action any person takes inherently affects every other person and their own actions, no matter how remote they may be from each other. before looking up the poem's authorial intent, my read on "Everything" was more of that mindset.

think about all of the connections you've made over the course of your lifetime. how many of them do you even remember? and how many of those connections who are still current in your life are a physical presence in your life?

and i know that you, dear reader, have connections in your life who aren't physically close to you--you're on Tumblr right now, of course you have at the very least acquaintances you've only met online.

we live in an unprecedented age where two people whose paths may have never crossed even once can still have direct influence on each other's lives on a personal level. the author of this poem was born in 1973; could you even have conceived of interacting with people all across the globe so casually as we do now had you been an alive, conscious being in the year 1973? with the exception of those with plentiful means, it'd have likely seemed like an impossibility.

but even still, it's not like you'll ever be able to meet everyone in the world. as the world carries on, so too does the proliferation of the people. so too does our lives.

there are people in my life who i am incredibly lucky to have met; in fact, all of my closest friends (honestly all of my friends period) are people i would've never met if not for being in highly specific niches on highly specific areas of the internet. and i think now about this poem and how lucky i am to have even had the chance to receive these people into my life. i'd genuinely be alone otherwise, likely rotting away from depression and other sundry mental illnesses in my parents' house in a state that was sucking my soul away. and, honestly, it's tragic to think that easily it could've gone that way anyway.

the author of the poem posits that the greatest love story of all is the kind that never starts, and thus can never end, and...well, that feels rather pessimistic, in a way. for the most part, i'm thankful for any friendships, relationships, and acquaintanceships, really any connections, i've had in my life, no matter how jubilant or horrific, no matter how momentous or inconsequential, no matter how beneficial or tragic. we are who we are largely because of those around us. the rest of the world shapes us just as we shape ourselves. the direct connections we have inform who we are relative to the rest of the world. and even the invisible connections that we can't see, hear, perceive in any way, they too affect our actions, beliefs, and station in the world.

for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. this is as true in physics as it is for people.

i do love this poem, but perhaps not for the reasons the author intends.

one line in particular that stands out to me in this poem: "When his name changed, she stitched a cloud to a quilt made of rags." what incredibly evocative imagery, the idea of affixing in a semi-permenent manner something ephemeral to something material! and the mention of a name change...it doesn't necessarily have to be so, but it feels incredibly queer to me. this line is probably gonna be rattling around in my head for a while, and i might make another post/reblog analyzing that one line further later once my thoughts fully settle on it.

anyway writing this analysis was a good way to spend the time it took me to go to my pharmacy to get my medicine lol