Milky Way Too Dramatic

The poem you’re about to read sucks.

But don’t worry, I rewrote it.

Look, I forgive my 14-year-old self for being over-dramatic, over-emotional, over-a-long-list-of-other-teenage-angst-related-words. What I can’t forgive is the ambiguity and limited word choice. Plus, I don’t remember what the poem was written about. Who it was about. Why I wrote it. Sometimes I penned romantic poetry for an imagined crush. Sometimes real people. I don’t think my heart ever felt that broken when I was 14, so I’m guessing the poem below was about a mystery man who didn’t actually exist.


Heart tells lies
written May 17, 2002 (I was 14)

Did my heart lie to me again?
I could swear I told him,
The man I admire,
That I was going to be there.
He told me he would see me
I guess I believed him
I believe everyone then.
But I thought he was special.
I guess special doesn’t mean perfect.
But what is perfection?
It is a boring, useless thing
Only sought to intimidate.
He isn’t perfection.
He doesn’t intimidate me.
But I believed him.
He’s special.
And he told be he’d be there.
He said he’d always be there.

Said the Heart to the Girl 
The 2011 Rewrite
written June 14, 2011 (I’m 23)

“You look pretty today,”
said my heart,
pumping compliments
into the caverns of my cheeks
like tires.

Acne dotted my face
dot
dot
dot
dot
dot
and I counted the stars,
ursa major
embarrassment, a constellation,
my face, its sky

and my eyes, from lack of sleep,
looked like those textbook photos
of the milky way,
except less bright,
less white,
more black hole-ish in shade
and consistency.

“You look pretty today,”
it said again.
But I looked at the red giants,
the black holes, and smiled big;
my white dwarf heart so dense,
it couldn’t see my eyes roll.

I knew too well,
this lie.
From hearts and from boys,
launched comets of “I love you”
across the universe.

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