As With Most Men

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxSADv2HVZI&feature=player_detailpage

Amy....

We all watched her decline. Those that saw her collapse and return, stumble and mumble her way through performances, from bloody brawl to pub crawl are not entirely shocked by her loss to the substance abuse that has characterized much of her career. The news is saddening, disheartening, but shocking? No.

We all saw the signs of what was going on. Very rarely is anyone's decline as public as Amy's was. From her family and friends protests for her to seek treatment, to the many times she was booed offstage by disgruntled fans, we saw the signs. The public encouraged and supported her families belief that she needed help. The fact that she was binge drinking and showing up to performances late or unable to complete the set because she could not function, accompanied by her blatant and adamant refusal to go to rehab made it clear that she was not even remotely interested in cleaning up her act. This young woman was on a crash course of self destruction and tragic legacy.

The latest member of the famed 27 Club hardly gathered much public sympathy or surprise. Naturally, with an addict, especially one as passionate and dedicated to their lifestyle as Amy, death seems inevitable. Does she still deserve fanfare and proper grief? Some believe that no, she does not deserve to make headlines, because this event was precipitous at best.Her highly publicized lifestyle of drug abuse and inappropriate conduct, which was shared by her husband made it so that people lost patience with her. This unhealthy relationship, the UK Whitney and Bobby, was a decided contributor to her inability to get the treatment she so desperately needed.

In the wake of her death many things remain in upset. Her cause of her death has been ruled Unknown, and is denoted as to be determined pending her autopsy which is scheduled for later this afternoon (Sunday 07.24.11). Moreover public opinion on her image remain contentious. Many people find it hard to sympathize with an addict, period, much less an addict of stature. Winehouse cannot claim poverty or misfortune as grounds for her substance abuse, as she was peaking for most of the time she was collapsing. Whether she will be portrayed as a beautiful tragic figure, or painted as a hapless junkie who met a batch that she couldn't handle we don't quite know. Often there are the romanticizers and the judgers who will paint one the angel or the demon, the victim or the harbinger. Amy's role in her tragic life and death will not be forgotten, but neither should her contribution to music.

In parting, there is much to be said for this fallen star. Here was a woman who's demons wouldn't begin to loosen their grip. Even in her success Winehouse could not shake the junk. She has my sympathy, from one lost soul to another. I only maintain that she be held accountable for her choices. I ask that her death not be romanticized or treated like anything other than what it is. I do not regard her with pity nor disgust, I see her as human, simply human. Often to survive this world unscathed one must be greater than human, and most have failed. Amy's decline and eventual surrender to her demons must be greeted with understanding and not judgment. Everyone needs help, some more than others. My mother always says "every dog has its day, some have two." One thing is certain: Amy Winehouse's struggle was no different from anyone else's, it was just more public.

I hope, in all sincerity that she found the peace she was seeking, the oblivion. She died young, taking with her a voice and talent that won't soon be matched, and I hope that her struggle is not forgotten, nor paraded about as this nation is so fond of doing. Rest in peace Amy.

Even Gods Get Put Down..

I'm just a notch in your bedpost
But you're just a line in a song

We deal with so many different things. Rejection, disappointment, angst, anger, regret.
It took this line in the song "Sugar We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy for me to realize that we're equally victims. I knew it, but this was just so much better than I could have put it.

Over the past year I've made decisions that I suffered for, made connections that I could never regret but will always be sorry for, I've danced with uncertainty and pragmatism, and both have left me empty. I allowed myself to feel used the same way I allowed myself to feel pleasure from a situation that I knew was weak from the beginning. But we make our choices don't we? And so I did..

I am a smart girl, wise and strong, passionate and level headed; the logician, academician, intellectual and consummate cynic. And I was brought to tears by someone I condescended to engage. Isn't that something? Even goddesses can be brought to their knees.

I don't pretend that I am the single most desirable woman on earth, but I have a lot going for myself of which I am aware, and the situation that I chose to participate in reminded me of how human I am, and where my weaknesses and flaws lie. It hurt me and it made me stronger and now I just wish to exist peacefully and write poems like I once did.

I just had to remind myself that even Gods may be humbled.

Problems.

We trade problems for problems you know? Trade a little more of what we can live with for a little less of what we can't. We trade demons for better days. Shrug off the moment just to get through it, cause someone told us that even if tomorrow wasn't better we still had to try to reach it. Life is something like a battle of wills. The will of god, the will to survive, the will to be something better than you were yesterday. Sometimes we fall short. A lot of time we have to juggle struggle and positivism; fight to not become downtrodden by life and still try to maintain enough of a smile for it not to be said you died miserable. Welcome to existence.

I'm a few shots away from being an alcoholic and a couple of bottles past giving a fuck. We are down on our luck. And the papers tell us that the world is flourishing but an animal rights commercial just brought tears to my eyes. Someone beating on an animal because they traded demons and got more demons. Maybe worse demons. We live hope to hope, misery chases company, and we're a few sighs past understanding. No longer demanding we kinda just pray. Love. Dream. Life has successfully suppressed the revolution. Niggas is just tryna live, and we got problems and not a lot of fucks to give.So the crooked cops keep crookin and the politicians profit off our misery and hard won apathy. Us little-victory soldiers can't fight more wars than the one's on front lawns we can barely maintain. Us hard luck poets with a lot on the brain, tryna stay sane and make bread where there is barely grain. We got problems. Trading demons for destitution, and bitterness for better days. Trying to figure out how the fuck we gone make it through all these problems with a little bit of a smile.

I'd ask you to stay awhile, but you probably got some problems of your own.