High school love poetry I don't hate.

I've decided to cut the snark for a moment and post a few poems that don't make me cringe when I read them. Most of them are just moments or impressions, maybe inspired by reality but existing mostly in my head. They're all about love and connection, because that's pretty much all I wrote about for the last few years of high school.


Road Trip

Take me farther
down the
road
till we can’t see behind
us, and you
are all that fills the cornfield
in my head.
Through the singing
of the tires and the wind
in the trees,
take me under this orange sky
and bless me.

1/16/03


Suspension of Gravity

Unlike the serious diamond
on my finger, or the mountains
that we now watch
cover the sun (represented
by the tiny lumps on paper and cardboard
that hang in your expensively private study:
this is where you're going, this is where you've been),
you are not solid.
Any moment now, I fear that you will disappear
in an explosion of stars and light:
leaving me with no anchor,
nothing to hold me to the descending earth.

(2004)


Sway

I wandered back behind the parking lot,
through the maze of pine and cedars,
trying to emulate the air-
which seemed so crisp, articulate. You were in
the dance hall, shiny in your quick clean
shoes: and your movements
swayed the trees straight up to the highest
branches. It grew colder. I leaned into
the ground and watched their needles weave
a pattern across the moon, thinking of you.

(2004)


Happenstance

You are beautiful,
but I do not know you.
Only after the passing of this
will I first clearly be able to see
the whole of you,
darling:

(Beyond your quick, deft
hands; your skillful words and
interwoven silences;

your ever-present sweet-
expensive smell, which mingles
with that of the honeysuckle
vines of my childhood
memories.)

(2004)

Triggers

So it dawned on me this weekend that I've been dealing with loss all semester through sheer repression, and now it's all coming back up.

My defenses have been up. I've been unable to connect with my emotions. In the middle of the semester I existed in a fog, barely going through the motions of my daily life while having absolutely nothing to offer anyone. It started looking up eventually. I re-invested myself in school and counseling. I started "getting out there," getting closer to several of my friends, meeting new people, making out with everyone I've ever met, etc. It was a good time, but somewhere around the end of finals week, a sense of unease began to creep over me. With all of the stress and sleep deprivation of finals, the process of coming out in Chico and then being slapped in the face with the cold hard reality of staying closeted in my family at Christmas, the weight of everyone's expectations, dealing with being single and attracted to people again, and finally inadvertently hanging out with my ex yesterday... it was just too much. That last run-in was the last straw. It was thoroughly fine and pleasant at the time, but I had to face the fact that I am still emotionally ravaged, and as a result, I have withdrawn to the point that there is a gaping hole in my life in terms of emotional intimacy with other people.

I have become so guarded and terrified at the thought of opening up to people. It's been weeks since I was emotional in front of a friend. I remember crying in front of my mom about various things over Thanksgiving break and that's the last time I really allowed myself to be vulnerable. I want to reach out to everyone, but when it comes time for me to do it, I feel numb. I can talk for days about my self-doubt and defense mechanisms, but it's all intellectualized and distant.

So my New Year's resolution is to allow myself to be vulnerable. I'm exhausted from keeping all of this so buried. I want to stop trying to keep my distance from people by repressing my emotions and intellectualizing everything. I just want to be present in my life. It's like there's this wall between me and my life right now. I can kind of see through it-- enough to notice vague shapes on the other side-- but not enough to really connect with what's happening. I'm tired of it and it needs to change.

My High School Poetry, v. I: "Society totally isn't ready for how deep and tortured I am."

So this was the end of my freshman year, when I was transitioning from being in denial-- wearing heels and glitter makeup all the time and pretending to be interested in normal stuff like high school boys and the mall-- to being totally emo and clinically depressed. Society SUCKS, you guys! People are FAKE! And I have so many problems that they can't see! Why won't they see me?!?!?!

Coming up soon...
v. II: my Lord of the Rings phase
v. III: e.e. cummings is so awesome that I'm going to rip him off in everything that I write for over a year
v. IV: overwhelmingly idealized descriptions of the true love I know I'll find really, really soon, but not yet, because the only thing more romantic than love is the false sense of superiority that comes with hating everyone around you

*

Locked Inside the Box

When did it end?
That childlike wonder
curiosity flowing through our veins
The hunger for discovery
lust for passion
When life was the pursuit of happiness
and happiness was sincere
Never concealed and overshadowed
by society’s shining stars and brand names
How do we reverse this destruction?
When was the birth of our corruption?
Were we ever really alive
or are we born breathless walkers
stalkers and killers and trembling cowards
afraid and unable to break the surface
of our sunken dominion
We are taught not to question
but told to think outside the box
Life is a maze of boxes
all piled, one over another
And in them we are packed together
like milk cartons in a crate
The thirst of tyrants
drains our personal power out of our souls
Our own roots are concealed
until we are one
society and individual
Alive without breath
speaking without saying a thing
With vacant eyes we survey our surroundings
jack-o-lantern grins littering pancake faces
never knowing what is
or what could be

5/30/02


Submerged Kingdom

Don’t mind me
Let me stay alone
You try to label me
but you look right through me
A faceless presence
cloaked in shadow
Threatening your world of sunshine
You say love truth beauty happiness
but where am I?
Fallen through the cracks, they whisper
melting into the shadows
observing from behind closed doors
I see you, though you don’t see me
I know you better than you know yourself
But don’t mind me
Turn away as you watch me drown
in this submerged kingdom
of your love truth beauty happiness
And the decay beneath the surface

4/16/02


Tearless

You used to cry.
Remember when?
You were young, carefree.
Boundaries did not exist,
and opinions had no hold over you.
Then you grew up.
You abandoned you childhood in a dark alley
as you ran to meet your friends.
Do you remember?
It’s not like you can cry now.
Your mascara will run and your friends will laugh.
Your eyes clear over time,
and you forget the days when they were
deep wells of love and emotion,
instead of pretty things to paint up and direct at boys.
Then you wake up one morning,
after countless years have passed,
and you don’t recognize yourself.
The beauty of your youth is gone,
and what now do you have?
Nothing.
You shake with the realization
that you have nothing.
And you cry once again.
Salty drops cascade down your stricken face,
tearless for so long.
Now you cry not in freedom
but for the loss of it.

4/26/02