The Unsolvable Equation

Chapter Twenty-two

Alexia was lazing around on her bed, reluctant to channel her energy into anything productive, when her mother burst into her room and demanded that she clean it up. Reluctantly, she started packing her books and clothes and arranging them in order. While, repacking her desk, her hand brushed over a book that she had not touched in years, and like all good mystery-cum-romance stories, she felt compelled to open it up to read.

At the age of seven, Alexia’s father gave her a notebook, the kind decorated so beautifully it would be a shame to fill them with anything else other than words spun into art. She had kept the notebook away in her cupboard until she was sure she had something worth to fill its pages, something she would not look back on 10 years later and feel like throwing into the depths of hell. Then one day, she stumbled across her father’s book of poetry, (through she was now sure he had left it lying around on purpose, so as to show off discreetly) and was thrown into the side of her father she never knew existed. Her father, unbeknownst to Ryan and Alexia, had tried to make a career out of poetry, but failed and was resigned to working in his current job. And why he was rejected was beyond her; his works sounded like they came from the mind of someone else, whose life was far more colourful, whose appreciation for art and literature was shared by few, and who was far more skilled with the pen than her father appeared to be. She couldn’t believe that the man who was drunk into oblivion most of the time he was home was capable of spinning words into heart wrenching, jaw dropping phrases that made her laugh and cry and sit back in utter disbelief. Suddenly, her respect for her boring father had shot up by about ten notches. Alexia had tried to get her father to open up, to share about his stint as a poet and what she got out of him were the bitter remains of a shattered dream.

“The clue to success,” he had said, his mouth set hard. “Is not to write what you like, but what they like. It doesn’t matter if you are a good poet, it only matters if you fit society’s definition of a good poet. And I,” he took the book out of her hand and shoved it in a drawer. “Did not.”

“But I want to write like you,” Alexia had begged. “And I think you’re good! You should try again, I’m sure you’ll get published!”

Her father sighed. “That’s sweet of you, Alexia, but contrary to what they tell you, you don’t choose your own destiny, society chooses it for you. And in my case, a publisher decided that poetry writing wasn’t what I was cut out to do.”

And so the discussion had ended right there and then, but Alexia was still determined to learn how to write poetry. She tried imitating her father’s works, she learnt how to break words up into different stanzas, she learnt the one liner blackout impact technique, she learnt how to twist phrases together, she learnt doubles meanings, hiding messages beneath a string of letters. She learnt metaphors, she learnt to decipher her father’s poems, and she learnt things she wished she never knew. Poetry opened up to her a whole new worlds, where stories were told in a few lines and families broken up by a few pauses in the melody of words. Poetry opened up to her the path few traveled and great paintings condensed into mere sentences. Poetry also opened up to her a closet of hidden secrets: her father’s battle with alcoholism, his fading attraction to her mother and his desire to be liberated, to be free of all chains called family. However, despite his apparent unhappiness, he always reinstated that he couldn’t do this, that he wouldn’t cheat for the sake of his children.

And though by my desires bound,

The only thing that keeps me sound,

My duty to my flesh and blood

From this love I can’t depart

And even though it pains me so,

suppress, control, forget and hold.

12th April 2008

Five years ago. Five years ago, Alexia had a father with an ounce of self control in him, with a droplet of morality. That was his last poem. Five years down the road, his sense of duty to his children had faded into nothing and temptation had finally caught up. However, discovering her father’s silent struggles had motivated Alexia to write more, to cover up her own life with metaphors and symbols, so that she could read them later on and play a guessing game.

Now, she sat on her bed, flipping through that fancy notebook that she had ended up filling with her poems. She read through them, cringed at some, marvelled at others, and realized that her last entry had been almost  year ago. Alexia wondered if she should pick up the pen again, and turn the cliche chick flick her life had now become into a poem. She wondered if she could still remember how to write, if maybe somehow, the typical love story had been done to many times over and it just wouldn’t work for her.

You can’t learn how to write, Her father used to say, muttering his comments of disgust at people who wrote in to inquire for a literature teacher. And you can’t forget, either.

Why not give it a shot, and hey, while we’re at cliche, why not go all the way and relate it back to a good ol’ fairytale? The idea made her laugh, but it had been a while since she’d let the child in her come out to play, so she went along with it. Alexia clicked her pen and in the midst of her half packed room, ventured back into the wonderful, weird world of poetry.

Character

I am the main character

I am the core around which the story revolves.

I am the story upon which a life is built

I am the life which is populated by other people

I am the person they all notice

I choose, I pick

I run the show, the ringleader

But I’m really not

I am the villain

I am the worm in the apple

I am the thorn in the rosebush

I am the spice in the dish

I am the twist

I complete the story

I am hated, horrible

But I’m really not

I am the prince

I am the shaft of light

I am the happily ever after

I am the hero, you root for me

I am the one, you swoon for me

I am perfect,

Too perfect,

But I’m really not

I am the extra,

I don’t come in a shiny package

I don’t feature in the movie poster

I don’t win the hearts or the big bucks

But I move the story along

I fill in the creaks

I paint the big picture

I really do