When I was in middle school and high school, I loved poetry. I loved rhyme and rhythm, melody and verse. I enjoyed writing about love and friendships, with humor and bite. I wrote with literary themes. I was Dante and Edna. I pulled inspiration from textbooks and television and telephone calls. High school bred angst and first kisses; middle school, first crushes and a tendency to blush when I talked (I might still do that). It was a time of poetry innocence. Then some of the themes became dark, some dark and hopeful. I was asked to speak at funerals for family members, a poem for each. I wrote about Heaven and memories and loss. But writing that poetry was difficult. My poetic innocence fell away in pieces the size of ash, slow and fiery, with every reading. In college, my poetry had an edge and was marked by an apparent loss of youth. I chose subject matter plagued by grosser imagery. I wrote about bruises and cannibalism and sex and cigarettes. My collection of love poems stagnated. Lately, though, I’m trying to reconnect with a younger me. It presents a challenge, but I truly miss the love.
I’m including some poetry below from my first years of high school and from my undergraduate collection.
Note: Please excuse the lack of punctuation on some of these; I was young.
Poems I wrote when I was 15 years old:
Walk by Alexa L., written February 9, 2003
I know it’s been a while
Since I first walked into your life
But my shoes are weary
My laces ache with pain
And I find my feet can’t stand
My soul guides me
But my sole is worn
My knees are weak
And I have trouble keeping straight
My step crosses and I descend
At the sight of you
And my heels are gaining lift
While my toes stick softly
To the pavement that grows equal in strength
To my heart
Trying in passionate steps
To stay parallel to the ground
I fall and drift
My feet lifting from under me
And the pavement’s open arms
Guide me to him
Until I can walk
Into his life again
Please Realize This by Alexa L., written November 2, 2003
I think you are a bit mistaken
My friend, I think you’ve lost your mind
Your sanity seems to be taken
To places I have yet to find
You think you love this precious child
My friend, she’s quite out of your range
And though you think she drives you wild
You’re acting just a bit too strange
It’s awful how you look at her
My friend, her looks take form of scorn
You think she’s being nice for sure
But you’re blowing on a muted horn
You really should give up on this
My friend, you’ll cause yourself dismay
You’ll never get true love’s first kiss
If you keep acting quite this way
Can’t you see she’s just a snot?
My friend, her nose hangs in the air
But all you think is that “she’s hot”
In reality there’s nothing there.
I love how things float past your head
My friend, she just laughed in your face
But yet you look past that instead
And try to find what’s empty space.
You are the sweetest one I know
My friend, this girl is dumb of sweet
And yet to her you always go
You tread behind her very feet
This girl is nothing but a blimp
My friend, her brain is helium
I’ve never seen you act a wimp
Consequence of delirium
Don’t you get this girl is wrong
My friend, there’s others, can’t you see?
I’ve been waiting for so long
Why can’t you find that love in me?
I confess, the need does burn
My friend, I love you just so much
I wanted love in true return
There seems to be no chance of such
My friend, this girl is not your style
My friend, the love will always grow
My friend, I loved you for a while
My friend, I was too scared to show.
My love, please understand my view
My love, I will not guide your heart
My love, I am in love with you
My love, I’ve loved you from the start.
A poem I wrote when I was 16 years old:
Invisible Man: A Poem by Alexa L., written August 27, 2004
I made an attempt to look the other way,
But I was forced back into my line of sight.
I could not speak, only seeing nothing
With my head turned down into my inner fight.
I reach across my chest to grab at something,
But nothing was still stopping me from that,
And I was caught without a way to argue
Against my forced down head from where it sat
The outside tried to force my head again now
To be looking up into a blinding light,
But I still tried to look inside my values
Since I saw that something was against my right.
So I pushed left while falling into circles
And my eyes received a final desperate blow,
For nothing was stopping me from something;
Apparently, the thing I did not know
It’s all right to say I never did learn something,
But the truth is always found beneath a lie.
So I closed my eyes and looked inside for guidance,
But the voice that flowed through all of me was dry.
With every turn into a wrong direction
I had chosen every path that could be wrong,
Away from what I prayed would lift my head up
Into places where I would be sleeping long.
But the fear of sleep and blindness was not tempting.
I was not to be afraid of what I thought
For every time I closed my eyes, I faltered
Thinking every time I spoke I never fought.
So finally in efforts to be human,
And to break the chains of what I could not see,
I chose to go into the dark for clarity
Of finding the identity of me.
Poems I wrote when I was 19 years old:
Flight Seven Thirty-One (sonnet assignment), by Alexa L., written March 26, 2007
Flight seven thirty-one had left the gate
and pleaded with the wind to let it rise,
but did not move at my required rate
(Not something I would often criticize).
But Grandma was a place I wished to be,
a destination from my very birth.
But clouds had covered all there was to see—
white coffin for the burial of Earth.
I prayed my destination would be well,
with all its streets and people in their place.
But if I found that all had become hell,
I don’t know if it’s something I could face.
So here I sit thousands of miles high,
discussing deaths of cities with the sky.
Flight Seven Thirty-One (sonnet revision assignment), by Alexa L., written April 18, 2007
I. Flight
I looked, but did not really look
at the city below me,
while flight 731
ascended the steps of the sky.
Clouds formed a coffin,
that buried the Earth,
and I could not see through
the white,
opaque puffs.
I closed my eyes, and leaned
my head into the window. My cheek
molded into the plastic casement,
so all that could be seen from those
thousands of feet,
was the paleness of my skin.
When I would reach my destination,
to see Grandma,
I would tell her how the birds
laughed at the pallor of
my flattened face.
I would tell her that the clouds
looked like elephants, and as the night
crept into the pink and purple hues of sundown,
they made the sky into a star-lined rainbow.
And she would smile.
II. Grounded
The airport was cold, the walls
white. But not white
like the clouds.
Hospital white.
My father waited to pick me
up, but could not suppress the hurt
that reddened his eyes and made crying
seem harder than learning
to fly.
I wanted to go back to the plane
and wait
to go anywhere but Grandma’s house.
Because if I was on the plane,
maybe
she would still be alright,
would still want to hear about
elephants and honey-roasted peanuts.
But I felt my eyes get red too,
and sank to the corner to face
white walls.
III. Destination
Grandma’s house was separated
by labels with printed names of who
gets what.
My name was everywhere.
Her scent was everywhere.
A collection of elephants was torn
apart and spread
across the country,
from California to Maryland.
Elephants with trunks facing skyward
meant good luck.
Why didn’t I feel
lucky?
My name was on three
elephants so far,
raising their trunks toward
Heaven; with their destination,
unknown.
IV. Boarding Pass
Numbers took their respective
place upon the paper rectangle
that would decide my
fate.
But I was not destined to crash,
burn, or die.
Others were;
just check the numbers.