people want the dots to connect
they want the story to fill
their preconceived notions —
linearity, order,
sequentiality…
cause and effect in equal measure
— it makes them feel good
if intention precedes action,
and they prefer to have desire
come before fulfillment…
but life isn’t bullet points
on a page —
you can’t plan and outline
the hell out of this shit
it should be enough to say
it’s messy, a blur…
things fall apart sometimes
and so very often
there is no why at all…
I am what you see,
but I am more so
what you don’t,
can’t,
refuse to,
and won’t
Garbage Notes:
We all want to connect the dots. It’s perhaps our greatest ability as human beings, to be able to fill in the blanks, to draw in evidence from disparate sources and make a complete whole—to draw a conclusion. But not all dots can be connected.
Life isn’t one of those activity books you give to kids to keep them occupied. Life is messy and gross and it’s continually being dismantled every day. It changes when we wake up and then again when we go to sleep—when we put our heads down on that pillow and are forced to dwell on the vast personal ocean of the unconscious.
So much of how we perceive others is based on assumption, bias, preconceived notions, faulty guesses, and wish fulfillment. We want other people to be who we expect them to be—no more, no less. And this is to great detriment, because it causes us to miss out on truly new and unexpected perspectives.
In this poem I wanted to capture the beauty of not needing to connect the dots. I wanted to stress the importance of maintaining an open mind when dealing with anyone, whether it’s a loved one, a partner, a coworker, a stranger—anybody. We all have the potential to surprise and delight in our uniqueness and in our unpredictability.
You don’t have to apply any reasoning to it or say that there must be some grand explanation to it all. Life is full of weirdness, confusion, and uncertainty. My best way to cope with it is through writing. But we each have our own ways of dealing with it. So get by however you can. And maybe just once in a while try to see more in others than what might greet you on the surface.
Franco Amati 2023
“things fall apart sometimes
and so very often
there is no why at all…” If someone had told this to my young, impressionable brain while the self-help movement was shaping my synapses, what a relief! I know some feel dread when they contemplate “no why” to this messy, beautiful life, but it makes me fall into the moment with deep appreciation for the sweet absurdity of it all.
I love this, but especially the nod to Chinua Achebe - not only do things fall apart, shit shatters into a million pieces when it hits the ground (damn the fan, it’s on the ceiling and there’s no way shit fell up). Also, the dots - it’s appears that human eyes have devolved to the point where visual acuity is limited to focusing solely on toxic dots... happy weekend!