What Do You Prefer?

Possibilities

By Wislawa Szymborska

I prefer movies.

I prefer cats,

I prefer the oaks along the Warta.

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.

I prefer myself liking people

to myself loving mankind.

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.

I prefer the color green.

I prefer not to maintain

that reason is to blame for everything.

I prefer exceptions.

I prefer to leave early.

I prefer talking to doctors about something else.

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems.

to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries

that can be celebrated each day.

I prefer moralists

who promise me nothing.

I prefer cunning kindness to the overtrustful kind.

I prefer the earth in civvies.

This week I will unfortunately not be able to discuss some aspect of life as we know it as in relation to this poem and poetry in general. My mind feels numb, as I’m sure many of yours do, due to finals and other assignments that I will probably forget all about in a year. Let’s be honest about assignments: many of us do them to get them done. I digress.

Well, above is yet ANOTHER poem by Szymborska, as I currently find the language and content of her poems to be…awesome. Many of her poems are able to pick out that quick thought you might have thought once upon a time and describe it so well that your mind is just like, “oh yeah…”

Anyways, since, like I said, my brain is numb slash drowning in endless words and sentences, and not the ones I take much pleasure in reading and writing, my column this week will simply be my own rendition of Szymborska’s above poem. I promise it will not be nearly as poetic as hers is, but maybe it will somewhat entertaining.

I suggest you all give it your own shot; when your brain feels like mushed peas and you start the question the very existence of your own feet resting on the ground and start to imagine what would happen if the ceiling just happened to cave down on you, why don’t you just take a break and have some fun Szymborska-style? Take some time to think about those every-corny “little things” that make you feel like you. That make you feel content where you’re sitting. It can feel good sometimes.

I prefer sandwiches involving some sort of chicken.

I prefer my porch in the summer to the beach in the summer.

I prefer people who don’t use “literally” in “literally” the completely wrong way

as in, “I’m so hungry I could literally eat a cow right now.”

No you couldn’t. Just stop.

I prefer mid-September to mid-July.

I prefer cheap red wine to no cheap red wine.

I prefer pretending I’m in one long dream and even though I might never wake up, I could still be in one long dream. You never know.

I prefer not to think about anything past two years from this very second.

I prefer red roses’ appearance to red roses’ smell.

I prefer the Quad to no Quad. (No Quad? Impossible!)

I prefer meaningful words to meaningless sentences.

I prefer messy to clean. Clean is awaiting, approaching mess.

I prefer tomato soup to chicken noodle.

I prefer to end this poem now.