I ain't no Shakespeare

The other day the fabulous Sage braved the blogosphere with a couple of poems written while she was in high school. Her post made me think of the little cloth covered book, navy with white flowers, that I knew was tucked away in a box in my attic labeled "memories." So I went to the hallway, pulled the ladder down and crawled up there to retrieve the book.

I have to tell you that rereading these poems is seriously making me blush. They are that bad. Some of them, however, do make me remember EXACTLY what was going on in my life at that point, so they are an interesting history in that way. And some I look at the date and wonder "WTF?" Like this one, which was written the August before I started 9th grade. I had just started cheerleading, and had met the girl who would become my best friend all through high school. Here it is:

Blackness.
Deep, unending
pitch BLACK.
Fallying
into mysterious
NOTHING.
I'm searching
searching for light
but there is NOTHING.
Searching for something
to grab.
There is
NOTHING.
I continue to fall.
Helpless.
I feel so helpless.
Shivering cold.
Numbness takes over.
Now I feel
NOTHING.
I scream
but I hear
NOTHING.

Cheery, eh? And so surprising. I bet you never saw that last line coming. sigh. And no, to answer your question, I have never been suicidal. Although if my mother had seen this I'm sure she would have thought I was. Perhaps I've just always been a bit prone to the dramatic. Perhaps.

So a year later I write this little ditty:

Looking from the outside
what do you see?
A laughing, smiling, happy me.
Only rarely do I break down
and then you see
the lonely, tortured, REAL me.
Nobody realizes the pain that I feel,
or how much they've hurt me
beneath the smile that's not real.
The careless laugh I use to hide
the woulds that don't heal
hidden so deep inside.
I want to reach out
but where do I turn?
Each time I try so hard - yet I fail.
When will I ever learn?
I want you to notice.
I want you to see.
But I'm just forgotten.
What about me?

Are you singing the Moving Pictures song yet? I had the piano sheet music. It was my theme song. And I make fun of these poems (as I should, really) but they do make me remember how alone I felt through much of high school, whether I should have or not, that's how I felt. It's why I've always related to the great theatrical characters that pine for love: Eponine, Sonya, Varya, even Helena.

OK, enough poor, poor me poetry (although really, that's the bulk of what is in this little notebook). I will end with this one, written the winter of my junior year.

Echoes of Reality
Swirling snow
dances reality into a dream
under the sky which holds
a single glittering star.
Laughter echoes through glass trees
remnants of musical notes
voices singing to the heartbeat
of two magnetic souls.
Smile upon faces
that will never break;
captive eyes
that will never close.
A consuming flame
burns unceasingly,
defying the grasp of
frosty February fingers.
A spirit fills with eternal echoes
of a harmony
which will never again
sound the same.

This poem was written about a fellow I met at a weekend sledding retreat with my youth group. He was one of the staff at the camp (an older man!) 2 years later I actually went on a date with him, and let's just say it was not the fairy tale I thought it would be. However, we're still friendly. In fact, I was at his wedding.

So there you have it. I have laid my teenage soul bare. Ack. (as you can see, I have progressed mightily in my ability to express myself. "ack," indeed)