Author: OLIVIA T.

Mitski’s “I Will”

On By OLIVIA T.In Music PoetryLeave a comment

Everyone wants a person that they love to write them a love song. “I Will” from Mitski’s 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek is exactly what she wishes that someone would say to her. The “you” she sings to in her song is herself and the lyrics are everything that she would need to hear from someone else to make her feel safe and comfortable and loved. She begins her song  by establishing the unconditional love she already has for “you.”

“I will wash your hair at night

And dry it off with care

I will see your body bare

And still I will live here”

These lines clearly have a deeper meaning than just literally seeing “your body bare” and still staying. These lyrics represent seeing you for everything that you are and accepting you not despite your flaws but because of them. This concentrated phrase expresses loving you for every part of yourself. These poetic lines have a clear emotional and deeper meaning of what comfort in a relationship really looks like. The next part of the song goes beyond just unconditional love. These lines bemoan all of the issues that you carry throughout the day and offer to take this load off of your hands for you.

“And all the quiet nights you bear

Seal them up with care

No one needs to know they’re there

For I will hold them for you”

These lyrics make you aware of the fact that you are no longer alone, that this relationship is a true partnership where your load is carried by your partner. And these lyrics also imply an unspoken promise that you will carry some of your partner’s load as they carry yours. In life, most people need someone to tell them” that it will all be okay” when they are going through an experience that takes an emotional toll on them, and in this song where Mitsuki is expressing everything that she wishes that she was hearing from someone else. These lines are saying to her that everything will be okay because I am here and you are safe. These lines do not just tell you about someone carrying your load they place you into the experience. Whether one reads the lyrics or listens to the songs they live the “quiet nights” and experience sealing them up. At the end of the song Mistki sings.

“And while you sleep

I’ll be scared

So by the time you wake

I’ll be brave”

These last lines are so powerful. They express to you that your partner is willing to postpone their own feelings in order to “be brave” for you. Mitski’s song “I Will” is most definitely poetry.

Change Never Stops

On By OLIVIA T.In Exit WestLeave a comment

Exit West, by Moshin Hamid, is a story about doors opening around the world that can transport a person from one country to another. This phenomenon creates a migration apocalypse. Many people are moving to new countries which creates a lot of changing cultures and music. There is an old woman in Palo Alto who decides to stay in her childhood home as everyone else is moving. Even though she has decided to stay everything around her is changing, making her feel like a migrant in the only place she has ever lived. This Palo Alto Passage presents the theme of uncontrollable change. Everyone will experience change no matter if you migrate or not, and that change is unable to be stopped. Focusing on sentimental values and building community can make a healthy change. While focusing on monetary values will make the change bad.

Existential Women

On By OLIVIA T.In Existentialism3 Comments

In the 1990s film Trust, Maria is unable to truly reach radical subjectivity until she is no longer pregnant. It is almost impossible for her to detach herself from the world around her when she has something inside her depending on her to live. Her high school boyfriend is easily able to make her pregnancy a non-problem for himself because he is not physically attached to the pregnancy. While Maria has to put the baby into consideration until she decides to abort it.  She could not just decide to ignore the pregnancy or decide that it didn’t matter because sooner or later she would need to give birth or have an abortion. Pregnant women like Maria have to go further than their male counterparts to be radical subjects.

Conversation about Bias

On By OLIVIA T.In Short Stories2 Comments

In “Conversation About Bread,” two Black anthropology students from very different backgrounds are assigned to write an interesting story about each other and their region. Eldwin was raised in California and went to a multiethnic school where he learned to be unapologetically Black. Brian is from the south and feels that Californians have a false sense of superiority on the basis that they live in California. While both students attend the same PWI, their upbringing has led them to have extremely different experiences. Brian tends to cater to the white gaze, wanting to make sure that his story will make white audiences comfortable. Eldwin only notices the gaze when Brian is affected by it. Eldwin tries to write Brains’ story about Black southerners trying potato bread. Whether it was the first-person perspective or the way in which Eldwin wrote the story, it did not come off correctly. I think that this was because the story wasn’t coming from the person that it was about. Although both are “unicorns” at their school, these men were raised in completely different environments. Edwin’s unconscious bias about Black southerners is bound to sneak into the story when he isn’t a Black southerner himself. Brian’s input leads Eldwin to choose a new story about Brian to write, hopefully, a less biase one.

Benjamin’s Theory Applied to U.S Immigration

On By OLIVIA T.In Jessica Benjamin, Uncategorized4 Comments

Benjamin’s theory is present when looking at U.S citizens’ attitudes toward immigration. Many U.S citizens have a negative attitude toward people trying to immigrate to the U.S. Since immigrants were not born in the United States, they are seen as other, or not the same, as U.S citizens. Their dehumanization through the separation of families and unfair treatment is seen as acceptable to many U.S. citizens because U.S. citizens do not view the immigrating people as humanely as they view themselves. There is no mutual recognition between the U.S citizen and the immigrant. They are othered through their different birthplace, language, and culture. Although there are some U.S citizens who advocate for better treatment of immigrants, which works toward mutual recognition, the fact that mistreatment still occurs shows that mutual recognition is not yet met.