I don’t like that I can see through so many people—
it hurts to feel the frailty in all the little gestures…
I want to believe the best in you
and claim the prize in every stolen gaze
but it so rarely ever happens…
instead, I watch the spaces between words,
the gaps in your intentions,
painted by what you always fail to notice,
the frivolous things you tend to focus on
— always superficial,
like the title or a certain family name,
how much money a job’s supposed to make,
the car, the shoes, where you got that shirt
or where you went to school…
a compliment on how nice someone’s hair looks
instead of the novel way they used a phrase…
it’s the way some folks sound so extra-nice
in that overly strained-saccharine sort of way
when they greet the person they’re certain
doesn’t make a living wage…
as if forced kindness can’t be detected
by the worn-down perceptual machinery
of a worker who’s grievously underpaid
sure, the real world is ugly
and too many people are bitter
no one is interesting
and death is forgotten
we all live like there’s some fairyland
we get to go to
after about oh so many hours
spent slaving our lives away
but these are the only moments promised…
we’re always on the edge of blank-unconsciousness
but no one even seems to act like this matters,
like any of this ever moves them,
they just doubt that the raw, the real,
the unspoken,
and the instinctual
can ever really be the thing that saves
so, yeah, just watch that weather report
for tomorrow…
and I’ll listen to you complain
that out there it still feels like winter
when spring is only a few days away
Garbage Notes:
Superficiality, fakeness, politeness—it’s all for show. This poem was born out of my frustration with all that perfunctory stuff that people are expected to do out there in public.
I think what emerges from all this is a kind of disregard for the gravity of the moment. There’s also a tendency to undervalue the suffering that ordinary people go through on a day to day basis. I know, sure, no one wants to hear about all the shit that’s bothering you in your head. But at the same time, the stuff we talk about in social situations is always so frivolous.
Maybe it’s the dire introvert in me, with my lack of patience for things that I’m not interested in—things that don’t register on my scale of meaningfulness. I don’t know—but this ranty piece of writing came at a time when I was top-notch annoyed by how petty and surface-level people can be. Strangers, loved ones, friends—no exception. We’re continually occupied and entertained by triviality. And it’s sickening sometimes.
The thing to take away from this poem, if there is one thing, is that we are indeed always on the verge of something happening that could change everything. Life is fragile, precarious, and precious and we shouldn’t take even one moment for granted. The line I find to be most powerful is this: “we are always on the edge of blank-unconsciousness, and no one seems to act like this matters.”
Instead we are continually enraptured by the glitz and the money and the fame, by popularity and celebrity and beauty, and the continuous progress towards high-status and perfection. Nothing real, intimate, or understated ever seems to matter much. The real, the raw, the ugly and the imperfect—it should move us so much more than it does.
Franco Amati 2023
“The real, the raw, the ugly and the imperfect—it should move us so much more than it does.” Until you’ve lived the raw, the ugly or imperfect, you’re not moved by it. It should be different but it’s not been my experience. Very powerful.
Lots of head nods and " yes, so trues" with this piece. It's not a great power to see through people.