I have written hundreds of poems in my lifetime, although I haven't written a poem since 2007. I was really into the craft in high school, but once I got to college I didn't have the time for poetry anymore. I was distracted and intrigued by a variety of new things. These poems have been sitting on my hard drive for years, and are only there because I took the time transfer them from my notebooks to the computer screen. I posted most of them online many years ago, but I don't remember the site anymore.
Quite frankly, I don't remember writing this first poem I am sharing for Poetry Saturday. I wrote it when I took my poetry class during my freshman year of college, and since we reviewed each others poems in class, I didn't think I wrote it. I thought I had a copy of someone else's poem on my hard drive, which was weird but not inconceivable. Including years and dates isn't normally my style, and I didn't realize it was my poem until I found it in two places on my hard drive and continued to read further. There are references in there that can only come from me.
Emulate This Then Top It
Good, you left me
Good, you left me November 1st 1999 and that’s when I screamed “Armegeddon” found that you weren’t there and overtime felt the fallout from your detonated disappearance
Go party like its 1999 in the World of Forms as you have no particulars in this world and that’s where the problem lies
Good, where were you?
Where were you when I was told to stop trying to fit in when I couldn’t fit in anymore and people told lies to deny me the chance to fit in
Where were you when they spread the rumors the love the hair the smell the mouse the room all the rumors in their clicked language that’s cliqued together by added syllables
Where were you when I was left in isolation told that I should sit in the corner told that I needed permission to speak told that I was ugly told that I was better off not there at all
Good, I’m ready to prove Plato wrong and pry you from the party
I’m defiled by your increasing absence
When will you restore the pure of heart?
When will you solidify the loyalty?
When will you fight for the right cause and not the popular one?
When will you kill the ignorance?
When will you trump working hard over working smart i.e laziness?
When will you face the truth of your nonexistence?
Cause you weren’t there as Backstreet NSYNC 98 the Spice Girls Britney Christina all sang and I could not enjoy as I was not a part and only those a part could enjoy and all others who tried to enjoy posed oh they posed OH THEY POSED all right
You weren’t there with every idea ventured and ignored cause I was me “That’s not a positive” blank stares don’t look keep going let’s move why is she here she’s only Student of the Week 3.6 GPA Honors diploma dork doesn’t think like us farther from the rock than us bearing a much more goddamn colder climate than us yet I remain below as you build yourself this mountain that I could not scale and I ask you and I ask you and I ask you to substantiate why with your West Coast universities
You weren’t there everyday in Pre-Algebra as I had to sit next to Stuart three trimesters in a row and Mrs. Rosehill didn’t see it she didn’t see it she didn’t see it and I still see it clear as coordinates
You weren’t there as I held my ears tight to not hear a thing and yet I heard everything even the subtle silent ways they went to seductively slaughter
You weren’t there as I went home night after night straight-faced fronting the façade of nothing wrong
You weren’t there as I Twisted Metal: Black and saw the darkness and wished insanity, better insanity then battling sane better insanity then battling sane
And that’s just in two years
It’s been a six-year absence Good, a six-year absence
and not only have you left me but left the world as well. Do you have any of your particulars?
This scarcity of your current state, to say… unsatisfactory is an understatement
Because in the next four years I learned how to do it all according to Alanis’ “Eight Easy Steps”
Step 1: How to stay paralyzed by fear of abandonment
Good, I watched I your nonexistence