Friday, July 4, 2008

Nobodies Listening

I'd love to offer an informative post on an intricate level of poetry. Instead, I'm going to talk about something more interesting. Maybe then people will have something to say.

Today, at a local restaurant, I visited the restroom. After getting over the initial gross factor, I hope that you, the reader, will find as much interest as I did in what I found.

All over the walls was a mural, a painted log cabin (the interior), and all over the mural were etchings of passerbys, better known as "scratch graffiti". The desire to leave one's mark is a deep psychological drive hidden in each of us, but it leaks out in different ways. Some create, like me. Some procreate, like my parents. EEEEW. Some leave indelible marks in time with their actions, and finally, some just scratch an insignificant quote or quip upon a bathroom wall.

I can see the poetry behind this action, the way these words will stretch in years beyond this actual fact (like C hearts A). The most interesting graffiti, to me, is the "I" quotes. "I" was here. "I" love A, B, C, or any name imaginable. There is a level of anonynimity to this, the lack of a name, the use of the universal "I". But it's also personal, the I indicates a level of self importance and immortality.

So, next time you are in a public bathroom, keep your creation urges to yourself, because you probably won't be immortalized. You'll probably just be ridiculed in another person's blog post.