7 responses to “Poems & Takeaways—the end of our Poetry unit (Tues)”
Jumbled Words
Words don’t slip off my tongue like water
They crash like waves of words
stuck in my throat
Like a dog eating peanut butter
My saliva a gooey substance
Prohibiting words from forming
Sometimes words can be spoken
But there is a disconnect
the brain and the voice
lost in transit
to the mouth
words are uttered incorrectly
a mess of
Half sentences
Speaking
Becomes meaningless when
It can not be understood
Silence speaks louder
(sorry if the structure gets messed up when I post this)
A pretty blonde becomes an apex predator
Hungry for shirtless boys in Georgia humidity
His rock-hard muscles, bronzed and bruised
She aims and fires Cupid’s southern shotgun hit
Fantasies of biting crimson into his exposed neck
Backs soaked by the damp football field
Lips locked hungry, pleated skirt hiked up
She awakes battered and deserted in a haze of dewy dawn.
A teenage whore bobs along the waves of an indigo lagoon
Body freckles into iridescent scales and jagged fangs,
Full blood moon, Athena looms over
She absorbs the fossilized pain of a sea-born siren
Hunting throughout the swamps of slime
She chases a rickety rowboat cradling
A quarterback making his midnight escape
Unhinging her jaw, unleashing her terror
She ravages him into a red pool of
sticky,
sweaty,
boyish mush.
She used to like when he played with her jeans
Tracing the seams
Smoothly passing through
Voicing out
Every cut and blend
With no interruptions
He continued
She wore the same pair
A light-wash denim pair
And every time he found something new
Mid-rise
They see each other every day,
He traces the seams every day
Like the grooves on a tire
Worn down with every pass
She never thought much about it when home
He plays with her jeans
Tracing the seams
Little rips slowing him down,
Sometimes his finger gets caught
In the frayed ends,
Hurts her when it tugs,
More strings come out
His mouth opens,
She thinks he’ll apologize,
But he doesn’t say a thing
If you want to be a good big sister,
Be disgusted
When your brother
First shows his face into
The world.
Complain to your mother
How you didn’t want a brother,
And instead wished for a sister.
As the days go by,
Start to warm up to him
But don’t admit it yet.
When he’s older,
Turn him into the sister that
You never got to have.
Dress him up,
In all sorts of things:
Dresses, skirts, skinny jeans and high heels.
Paint his nails,
Do his makeup,
Put his hair up,
Make him pretty.
He might resist and complain,
Cry out for Mom and even shed a few tears,
But know deep down he loves the attention.
Force him to come to your tea parties
And make him gossip with Mrs. McStuffins.
When he starts to grow
Into his boy identity,
Make him be the Ken to your Barbie,
And force him to play with you and your dolls.
If you want to be a good big sister,
When your brother starts to get bigger
Show him who is in charge,
By showing him who is still bigger than him.
Wrestle him,
Tickle him,
Shove him,
Push his face into the couch and hold it there.
Make him so mad and angry
That he cannot yet beat you up.
Say to him,
“Maybe one day, little bro.
But right now is not your time.
Right now, I rule this house.”
If you want to be a good big sister,
Don’t let him turn into
One of those normal teenage dirtbags.
Show him what good music sounds like
And get him to stop listening to that trashy techno music.
Teach him Indie Rock,
And Classic Rock,
And all those genres that were on your Spotify Wrapped.
Show him The Smiths,
Clairo,
Lord Huron,
Arctic Monkeys,
The Neighborhood,
The Strokes
And of course Taylor Swift.
If you want to be a good big sister,
Guide him through those hard years,
Those years from 13-17.
When he’s trying to find his own identity,
But he doesn’t know where to start.
Help him through his first break up,
The one with the girl who cheated on him.
He may be acting all tough,
Not hurt,
Unbothered,
But know deep down that he needs you.
He needs you to show him
That its okay to feel his emotions:
His sadness
Heartbreak
Anger,
Betrayal,
And eventually his hope.
Show him that just because he is a boy,
He doesn’t have to be tough,
But can cry and ask
“Why did she do this,
What did I do?”
If you want to be a good big sister,
Show your brother how to treat a woman right:
Respect her choices,
Respect her body,
No means no,
Open doors for her,
Buy her random gifts,
Know that periods are hard for her,
And always listen to her talk.
But also show him
how he should be treated in life
As a strong and respectful man.
He shouldn’t
Be walked all over,
But instead respected for his good manners.
He shouldn’t
Be expected to pay for every date,
Or everything
Just because he is a man.
He should
Be taken out,
On dinner dates and more.
He should
Be pampered
And cared for,
And spoiled.
He shouldn’t be denied true love
Just because he is a man.
If I want to be a good big sister,
I just have to show my brother that it is okay
To be a human and make mistakes.
Eventually,
Through all my torture and lessons,
He will one day see me
As the good big sister that I am.
Takeaways: I had a great time in the poetry unit, which is something I honestly didn’t expect. I loved just getting to experiment with different structures and write random poems for the fun of it. Overall, my favorite unit.
Light strains from the only window
Swallowed by the darkness seeping
From the corners of the room
A glimmer of sun streaks in, reflected
From the pane of glass
Not direct, in fact it’s beginning to set
Rays that were never warm
To begin with
Instantly frozen by the biting air
Time feels irrelevant
No longer separated by days or hours
Eyes first opening in the afternoon
Not closing until morning
You’re a distraction
You’re turning me nocturnal
It’s not natural
For my eyes to stay closed
Through the day
My circadian rhythm has given up
The room still smells like you
From the other night
One of the five senses
That triggers memories and emotion
It’s too late for coffee now
The stars are in the sky
A girl I once knew
gave me half of a heart that said “forever.” It lived on our chests and turned upside down when we cartwheeled and
trampolined and danced.
We spoke in tongues,
ran until our lungs
gave out & we hung, from
trees and scraped our knees on the way down &
historians would later
decipher our words, confused. Rollie pollies bury in the cool of the dirt hiding in secret. We unearthed them. Butterflies flutter around the monkey bars that calloused our hands. We chased them.
We filled a treasure chest, our secret, sacred vault that we passed back and forth to each other, containing letters that professed our undying love for each other and claimed “forever”—
Another girl I knew gave
me tips and tricks on how to perfect my punches. We got up at dawn to practice, ready to defend and depend on each other, until the end— we stressed over tests & our sweat dripped wet on the mat. & When it
finished, I slept over where we painted our nails and drowned in sodas and sweets, surrounded by soft sounds of music playing distantly on her CD player— I sat next to a girl in computer class.
She was A, I was B
She was #1, I was #2. A match made in heaven.
Later, our letters traveled over the Atlantic Ocean & maybe the Indian Ocean too because some she never received…so maybe a fish in the sea is reading pleas of “Come back please!” and has a piece of
a picture of me in its teeth— I befriended a girl. We twisted and we wore our just-sewn pj shorts. The next day we shouted “Marco! Polo!” with a plastic tube sticking to my bare leg, we cooled off in
the pool until our fingers
and toes were pruned and the moon loomed in the sky. Unmoving, we just turned up the heat and took a seat leaving seedlings of tea, for the water to keep—
I noticed a girl who walked through the breezeway. We twinned with long dark ponytails, she shouted in class and made everyone laugh distracting from the lesson on the U.S. presidents. One night she called me crying, sitting on her porch, locked out
trying to make sense of
her forever hell, so I cried with her, forever. I met this girl, soft, though I had not yet touched her, sweet though I’d never tasted her. We conversed as if continuing from where we left off in a past life. Like I said “See you later!” instead of “Bye”
waves crash on the shore. I was the shore, existing under her waves, not noticing. Not noticing, even when we slept in my twin bed together on
the weekends. The world shed frozen tears, but we
played joyously in the
snow. The snow, too slushy
for it to form, so we just formed each other. I dive deep into her arms and see her chest, wearing half of my heart that says: forever
7 responses to “Poems & Takeaways—the end of our Poetry unit (Tues)”
Jumbled Words
Words don’t slip off my tongue like water
They crash like waves of words
stuck in my throat
Like a dog eating peanut butter
My saliva a gooey substance
Prohibiting words from forming
Sometimes words can be spoken
But there is a disconnect
the brain and the voice
lost in transit
to the mouth
words are uttered incorrectly
a mess of
Half sentences
Speaking
Becomes meaningless when
It can not be understood
Silence speaks louder
(sorry if the structure gets messed up when I post this)
Boyish
A pretty blonde becomes an apex predator
Hungry for shirtless boys in Georgia humidity
His rock-hard muscles, bronzed and bruised
She aims and fires Cupid’s southern shotgun hit
Fantasies of biting crimson into his exposed neck
Backs soaked by the damp football field
Lips locked hungry, pleated skirt hiked up
She awakes battered and deserted in a haze of dewy dawn.
A teenage whore bobs along the waves of an indigo lagoon
Body freckles into iridescent scales and jagged fangs,
Full blood moon, Athena looms over
She absorbs the fossilized pain of a sea-born siren
Hunting throughout the swamps of slime
She chases a rickety rowboat cradling
A quarterback making his midnight escape
Unhinging her jaw, unleashing her terror
She ravages him into a red pool of
sticky,
sweaty,
boyish mush.
No more Honeymoons
She used to like when he played with her jeans
Tracing the seams
Smoothly passing through
Voicing out
Every cut and blend
With no interruptions
He continued
She wore the same pair
A light-wash denim pair
And every time he found something new
Mid-rise
They see each other every day,
He traces the seams every day
Like the grooves on a tire
Worn down with every pass
She never thought much about it when home
He plays with her jeans
Tracing the seams
Little rips slowing him down,
Sometimes his finger gets caught
In the frayed ends,
Hurts her when it tugs,
More strings come out
His mouth opens,
She thinks he’ll apologize,
But he doesn’t say a thing
If you want to be a good big sister
If you want to be a good big sister,
Be disgusted
When your brother
First shows his face into
The world.
Complain to your mother
How you didn’t want a brother,
And instead wished for a sister.
As the days go by,
Start to warm up to him
But don’t admit it yet.
When he’s older,
Turn him into the sister that
You never got to have.
Dress him up,
In all sorts of things:
Dresses, skirts, skinny jeans and high heels.
Paint his nails,
Do his makeup,
Put his hair up,
Make him pretty.
He might resist and complain,
Cry out for Mom and even shed a few tears,
But know deep down he loves the attention.
Force him to come to your tea parties
And make him gossip with Mrs. McStuffins.
When he starts to grow
Into his boy identity,
Make him be the Ken to your Barbie,
And force him to play with you and your dolls.
If you want to be a good big sister,
When your brother starts to get bigger
Show him who is in charge,
By showing him who is still bigger than him.
Wrestle him,
Tickle him,
Shove him,
Push his face into the couch and hold it there.
Make him so mad and angry
That he cannot yet beat you up.
Say to him,
“Maybe one day, little bro.
But right now is not your time.
Right now, I rule this house.”
If you want to be a good big sister,
Don’t let him turn into
One of those normal teenage dirtbags.
Show him what good music sounds like
And get him to stop listening to that trashy techno music.
Teach him Indie Rock,
And Classic Rock,
And all those genres that were on your Spotify Wrapped.
Show him The Smiths,
Clairo,
Lord Huron,
Arctic Monkeys,
The Neighborhood,
The Strokes
And of course Taylor Swift.
If you want to be a good big sister,
Guide him through those hard years,
Those years from 13-17.
When he’s trying to find his own identity,
But he doesn’t know where to start.
Help him through his first break up,
The one with the girl who cheated on him.
He may be acting all tough,
Not hurt,
Unbothered,
But know deep down that he needs you.
He needs you to show him
That its okay to feel his emotions:
His sadness
Heartbreak
Anger,
Betrayal,
And eventually his hope.
Show him that just because he is a boy,
He doesn’t have to be tough,
But can cry and ask
“Why did she do this,
What did I do?”
If you want to be a good big sister,
Show your brother how to treat a woman right:
Respect her choices,
Respect her body,
No means no,
Open doors for her,
Buy her random gifts,
Know that periods are hard for her,
And always listen to her talk.
But also show him
how he should be treated in life
As a strong and respectful man.
He shouldn’t
Be walked all over,
But instead respected for his good manners.
He shouldn’t
Be expected to pay for every date,
Or everything
Just because he is a man.
He should
Be taken out,
On dinner dates and more.
He should
Be pampered
And cared for,
And spoiled.
He shouldn’t be denied true love
Just because he is a man.
If I want to be a good big sister,
I just have to show my brother that it is okay
To be a human and make mistakes.
Eventually,
Through all my torture and lessons,
He will one day see me
As the good big sister that I am.
Takeaways: I had a great time in the poetry unit, which is something I honestly didn’t expect. I loved just getting to experiment with different structures and write random poems for the fun of it. Overall, my favorite unit.
Circadian Rhythm
Light strains from the only window
Swallowed by the darkness seeping
From the corners of the room
A glimmer of sun streaks in, reflected
From the pane of glass
Not direct, in fact it’s beginning to set
Rays that were never warm
To begin with
Instantly frozen by the biting air
Time feels irrelevant
No longer separated by days or hours
Eyes first opening in the afternoon
Not closing until morning
You’re a distraction
You’re turning me nocturnal
It’s not natural
For my eyes to stay closed
Through the day
My circadian rhythm has given up
The room still smells like you
From the other night
One of the five senses
That triggers memories and emotion
It’s too late for coffee now
The stars are in the sky
“Forever”
A girl I once knew
gave me half of a heart that said “forever.” It lived on our chests and turned upside down when we cartwheeled and
trampolined and danced.
We spoke in tongues,
ran until our lungs
gave out & we hung, from
trees and scraped our knees on the way down &
historians would later
decipher our words, confused. Rollie pollies bury in the cool of the dirt hiding in secret. We unearthed them. Butterflies flutter around the monkey bars that calloused our hands. We chased them.
We filled a treasure chest, our secret, sacred vault that we passed back and forth to each other, containing letters that professed our undying love for each other and claimed “forever”—
Another girl I knew gave
me tips and tricks on how to perfect my punches. We got up at dawn to practice, ready to defend and depend on each other, until the end— we stressed over tests & our sweat dripped wet on the mat. & When it
finished, I slept over where we painted our nails and drowned in sodas and sweets, surrounded by soft sounds of music playing distantly on her CD player— I sat next to a girl in computer class.
She was A, I was B
She was #1, I was #2. A match made in heaven.
Later, our letters traveled over the Atlantic Ocean & maybe the Indian Ocean too because some she never received…so maybe a fish in the sea is reading pleas of “Come back please!” and has a piece of
a picture of me in its teeth— I befriended a girl. We twisted and we wore our just-sewn pj shorts. The next day we shouted “Marco! Polo!” with a plastic tube sticking to my bare leg, we cooled off in
the pool until our fingers
and toes were pruned and the moon loomed in the sky. Unmoving, we just turned up the heat and took a seat leaving seedlings of tea, for the water to keep—
I noticed a girl who walked through the breezeway. We twinned with long dark ponytails, she shouted in class and made everyone laugh distracting from the lesson on the U.S. presidents. One night she called me crying, sitting on her porch, locked out
trying to make sense of
her forever hell, so I cried with her, forever. I met this girl, soft, though I had not yet touched her, sweet though I’d never tasted her. We conversed as if continuing from where we left off in a past life. Like I said “See you later!” instead of “Bye”
waves crash on the shore. I was the shore, existing under her waves, not noticing. Not noticing, even when we slept in my twin bed together on
the weekends. The world shed frozen tears, but we
played joyously in the
snow. The snow, too slushy
for it to form, so we just formed each other. I dive deep into her arms and see her chest, wearing half of my heart that says: forever
Two Ghosts
In this house, there is a ghost.
He pays no rent, to my frustration,
At least I live down by the coast.
He’s sneaky when he steals my post,
Impish as he stamps my vegetation.
In this house, there is a ghost.
Oh, and how he likes to boast
Of his many years of education.
At least I live down by the coast.
Today he ate my honey toast,
and asked about my isolation.
In this house, there is a ghost.
I’m forced to play reluctant host,
As he meddles with conversation
At least I live down by the coast.
But what I hate the most
is how he’s become an expectation.
In this house, there is a ghost.
At least I live down by the coast.