Emoetry

Ready for a break from the doom-and-gloom? I sure am!

Finding my college application got me thinking about the past.  And when I start thinking about the past, my next step is to usually search my email.

My email goes back a long ways.  It's practically become an auxiliary memory bank.  When I can't find something, chances are it's in my email.  Old files, old essays, old friends... and old poetry.

But not just any poetry.  Angsty poetry.  Angsty teenage poetry.  Or, as I'd like to dub it from here on out, emoetry.



I'm pretty sure most people have bad poetry or bad stories or bad something from their teenage years.  (Please, please tell me you do.  It'll make me feel better.)

Maybe it was on your LiveJournal or MySpace.  Perhaps part of an old Geocities site that flashed and danced with epilepsy-inducing emoji explosions and rainbows and unicorns and floating cats on toast (it was a thing, okay?)

Or maybe it was just some lyrics you wrote at the time, thinking, in that moment, that they are the Best Thing Ever and that you should totally share them with your friends later and talk about how deep they are, and maybe you'll even start a band and get rich and famous and --

Well, you get the point.

Alas, now you look back and wonder, past self, what were you thinking?!

Just reading these poems makes me cringe and shake my head at teenage me, my emotions equal parts embarrassment and sympathy.

To be honest, right now I am struggling more with actually posting bad poetry than I ever did about hitting "Publish" on my anxiety post.  At least that was good writing.  (I think?)  This is just ridiculous.

All right; that's enough waffling.  Let's get started.

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Number one!

A Shadow of Myself
The silver mercury of the mirror
refracts my pallid phantom.
Condensation sheds a tear
for empty eyes and ashen skin.
I rest my palm against it
And it poisons me.

In this poem, we see themes of Romeo and Juliet in the author's allusions to poisoning; furthermore, the insinuation that the subject is pale and ghostly leads the reader to believe that they were, in fact, killed by poisoning.  There is no evidence or allusion to foul play.  However, as a "phantom" who is somehow able to see her reflection in the mirror, we must decide for ourselves whether she is human or otherworldly, and are left wondering but one thing:

"Bella, is that you?"

---

...Still here?  Okay, good, because I just about died of embarrassment.  Let's try another one, shall we?

Bittersweet
She sat and sobbed,
And her bitter tears fell;
The first stains in place of sweetness. 

The black apron crumpled,
its rough linen wrinkling,
To hold the hopeless ashes of vanity. 

And the offending pants were thrown-
Angrily sulking to the corner
Where no harm could come to face or form. 

And for all of her ugly secrets
She still wished for inner beauty,
But perhaps it was the end.

Yes, indeed, "perhaps it is the end."  The end of ever being taken seriously again.  I think this one was about a pair of pants that didn't fit.  I wish I was kidding.

I'm going to go right over here in the corner, with the sulking pants that don't fit.  We deserve each other.

---

Moving right along...

Dieity
Sometimes I wish I had a gun.
I would raise it to the sky,
I would say, 'I forgive you all,'
and shoot the heavens.

Ooh, this one is edgy in an "Everybody watch out, if you give me a gun I'm going to shoot the sky!" kind of way.  Bonus points for incorporating themes of death and religion in the title and the poem.  Open mic night, here I come.

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Okay, we'll do one more.  There are literally ten pages of this stuff.  And that's just what I rescued from my email.  I have no idea how many more there are.  I don't know if I'll have the fortitude to go digging anything up ever again if it all sounds like this.

Ready for it?  Ready?  Okay, here goes.  Last one.

That day the golden rivulets flowed, 

Streaming freely from widening eyes.

And when they laid waste to a virgin heart,

Those sunlight tears coagulated.

They veined her luscious rosebud lips

Flushing pretty pink in shame.

And when the mirrored axe fell it cried--

"A woman without a name."

WHAT IS THIS.  WHAT.  IS.  THIS.  Okay, breathe, Kimberly.  Breathe.  Calm down.

Just... virgin heart?!  Luscious rosebud lips?!  A beheading?  Past me, what were you thinking?!  

I don't have anything clever to say about this one.

---

Remember that bit where I said I was done?  I lied.  I feel the need to make up for myself, somehow.  So, here some examples that I'm a little more fond of; they hail from later on in my adolescence, when I was clearly a little less unhinged. When I go back and read these, I still feel a teensy bit of pride, as opposed to wanting to shut my head in a door.

But it's still poetry, so, you know, it can only get me so far in the self-redemption department.

Today is Mine 

Today, I deleted you.
It was simple, really.
A hundred-twenty checkboxes
And you were gone. 

Today, you talked to me.
It was casual, really.
I was a different person
Stronger, harder, meaner. 

Today, you begged me.
It was normal, really:
"Come back to my golden cage
and you'll never feel a thing." 

Today, I didn't miss you.
It was freedom, finally.
My thoughts were elsewhere,
And my heart was, too.

Is it wrong to love a really good break-up poem?  Okay, so maybe I wouldn't quantify it as objectively good, but I felt so damn great after that breakup that it's hard to shed that context when I re-read this one.

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This one is from late high school:

Urbanitopia 

You're always displaced when you wade
through this concrete wilderness of jagged-edged reality.
Not by the artificial breeze of stampeding metallic beasts,
or the jarring gleam of the lightbeams on greenglass,
but by the dizzying, gluttonous glow in the eyes
of black suits and blue ties. 

Their cigarette butts rise like towers in their own city
of volcanic waste and ephemeral ash;
a final fix to forget their own failing worth.
And each passing white line is another ordeal;
without a falter to your step or a flicker to your eyes;
They've rings on their fingers and wives at home,
and a gaze to fix upon you. 

And these glass towers still sway in the tar-torn breeze--
fragile gravemarkers ever-piercing the sky,
and serving to remind those who understand
of a young city that breathed once, and then died.

We didn't quite avoid the themes of death in this one, but I still like its cadence.  In case you were wondering, the stampeding metallic beasts are cars alongside a street.  For some reason, I was always so proud of that bit.  (See also: familiar themes of male gaze, phrased in a strikingly similar manner to "Bus Stop". Guess it was on my mind then, too.)

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Last one, for real this time.  This was written for a class assignment, also late high school.

“Sally” (Based on The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.) 

You, Sally, silky as smoke and
slight and slim.
You longed only for love
and dizzily rode
the tilt-a-whirl 'round.
And Sally, your skin
is ever-blemished blue, but
you still straighten your skirt
to brokenly venture home
and dizzily ride
that tilt-a-whirl 'round.
And you spin within your cage:
a songbird captured within
its own white walls, and
your life spun and spun,
but you never stepped down.

---

So, there you have it.  Emoetry.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  (And just remember, kids: friends don't let friends write bad poetry.)