I just found an old draft in my emails called Unspoken. It's a little collection of my old high school poetry. It's mostly emo trash, but there's a bit of it that I think is actually sorta good (???), and there's a few lines I'm proud of.
I was thinking about how it's fun to slowly watch yourself improve, finding little gems here and there, and being able to more honestly critique your own work. Watching the progress is interesting to me. I feel like I'm halfway decent at poetry now, so it's cool to look back at a time where I was just throwing lines on a page.
It's also kinda sentimental to me because I thought a lot of this was lost. I used to post this shit on Facebook all the time (it definitely made me a lot of friends and didn't make everyone think I was a lame freak), and after I deleted my Facebook I thought this stuff was just gone (though I'm sure Zuckerberg still has copies saved to his desktop).
How fortunate we are that it's still around /s
It looks like the last edit happend on May 25th, 2015. I was 17, a junior in high school, and way too edgy for how old I was.
Here we go!
SLEEPLESS.
Up again, can't sleep tonight.
Fighting memories of my forgotten years.
Remembering regrets and those empty tears.
The sirens of my sorrow ringing in my ears.
Up again, another sleepless night.
I don't understand why I thought I was so tragic. I mean, yeah, sure, I was depressed. But like, what the hell?? Nothing terrible ever happened to me.
"Remembering regrets" What regrets???? You're only 15 silly.
HANGMAN.
I am poor, I am meek.
I am small, I am weak.
I never learned to rely on hope,
I've only ever known the Hangman's rope.
I don't know why the world's done this to me,
but I know better than to ask for pity.
And so instead I'll repeat this phrase.
And I probably will till the end of my days.
I am poor, I am meek.
I am small, I am weak.
This one really, really, sucks. I was such a whiny bitch.
I do still repeat that phrase though, and will continue to do so /s
CLING.
People cling to what they know,
So I hold on to this pain.
They tell me I should let it go,
but they can't see I need this rain.
You'll never understand Mom!
Also this has absolutely no rhythm. eek.
DECEIVE.
My goal is to deceive,
not to make you believe.
So gamblers beware,
'cause I didn't come to share.
Watch out you fucks, I can shuffle cards!
I used to be really into sleight of hand, and honestly I got somewhat good at it, though I don't remember much of what I learned now. I look back fondly at that time, even though it's kinda cringey and awkward. It was very "me," at the time, if that makes sense. It's also the thing that inspired me to take my life in a more creative, interesting direction. So I'm thankful for the awkwardness.
Anyways, I was always trying to make it seem like a very serious and cool thing to do, like only badass masterminds understand "the way of the card." In reality it's one of the dorkiest things you can do, and usually a strong indicator that you need to make some friends.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
HER.
I continue to play, though I know I'll lose.
I hold onto hope, though I know what you'll choose.
I rely on my head and ignore my heart.
Though lately my head's been falling apart.
You say I carry a piece of you, and you a piece of me.
If that's true, then why am I so empty?
You're my beginning and my end,
You're my childhood friend.
I see your face, and it makes my day.
But I shut you out and push you away.
And in my head, I know it isn't right.
But my heart's only ever known how to fight.
I fall in love just to fall apart.
So the rhythm in this one is a little choppy, and yeah it's dramatic and silly, but honestly I kinda like it. It's not as whiny as most of the others, it acknowledges that I was immature at the time. It's not all "Girls only go for other guys." And a lot of the lines and themes are pretty good, I think; it's less abstractly emo. Like, the other poems on here are whiny and "sad," but it's not that clear what I'm whining about. This one presents a more clear story.
"You say I carry a piece of you...then why am I so empty?"
I feel like that's a pretty line. The lyrical-ness is a little off, but I like that idea, of challenging the other's claims, and feeling like something is missing when you have what you thought you wanted. I can't remember if anyone actually said something like that to me, though. I'm pretty sure this poem is about one of my friends in high school that I had a crush on for a long time, and I think right before she went into the hospital she said something along those lines. I just remembered that before she left, before I knew she was going to do something to herself (November of sophomore year, right before Thanksgiving; I don't know why all the drama in my life happens the week before Thanksgiving) she wrote me a letter telling me how much I meant to her. I saved it for a really long time, and I'm not sure if it's still around. I left it in the bottom of a boxed book set I had, but it might've been thrown out.Man, hadn't thought about this in forever. Weird. I'd like to find that letter.
"I see your face, and it makes my day; but I shut you out and push you away"
I also think this one is good, and lyrically on point."I fall in love just to fall apart."
I still love these cheesy little parallelisms. I think there's something really cool about the wordplay here, albeit not as original as I thought at the time.
HER 2 (Fall).
I rely on my head and ignore my heart.
Though lately my head's been falling apart.
These things I know, they don't match what I feel.
These things I know make me wonder if it's real.
I continue to play, though I fear I'll lose.
I hold onto hope, though I fear what you'll choose.
Why does the beginning
Always feel like the ending?
Why does getting lost in your gaze
Feel like getting lost in a maze?
I see your face, and it makes my day.
But I shut you out, I push you away.
And in my head, I know it isn't right.
But my heart's only ever known how to fight.
I'm falling for you, I'm falling apart.
So I guess this is an alternative version of the previous poem. All around I think it's a much lesser version; the first flows much better, conveys emotion better, makes more sense, is more concrete, etc. This one is a little watery. I'm not sure if I like that version of the ending better or not. It's definitely still pretty solid in my opinion. What I would do now is have one version of the last line open the poem and the other close it. That's a sneaky way to include two versions of a lyric that you can't decide on.
CARRY.
I stand here, drowning in my rain.
I'm running the knife to numb the pain.
I'm starving the Lion without feeding my soul.
Now the weight of my world is taking its toll.
I've carried these things upon my shoulders,
But now these stones have turned into boulders.
And someday soon, though I don't know when,
These things I carry are gonna crush me from within.
This one I think is somewhere in between edgy bullshit and decent introspection. The first pairing kinda sucks, though I like the phrase "running the knife." It's a pretty way of putting it.
By the way, I feel like this paints the picture that I sat around slicing myself open all night. Not true. I hurt myself only a handful of times, never very bad at all, and mostly just for the romance of it.
Anyways.
I really like the responsibility taken in this one. The idea that it's my fault, and not something "the world" did to me. I also like the recognition that it's going to catch up to me at some point. It did.
"The Lion" is just symbolic of the 'bad' part of my personality, and while I don't really think of it as a character anymore, I still see myself as two halves, the good one and the bad one. I've always been obsessed with duality, parallels, etc. Though now I feel much more like the good one, and like the bad one is just an annoying hormonal imbalance, more commonly known as depression.
CROOKED.
I waste my time,
Hoping to find...
I don't know, something else?
So I step in line,
Commit these crimes,
And wind up all by myself.
The crooked games we play.
This one is boring, though I like the experimenting with pacing. It gives it some personality.
Also, discovering that you can slant rhyme 'else' with 'self' was a proud discovery, because literally nothing rhymes with 'self,' and I'm my favorite subject to write about. So it made future poems about myself much easier to write.
MIND.
Don't waste my time.
Don't cross my line.
Or you'll find
I ain't to kind.
I'll rob you blind
Till you lose your mind,
Just like I lost mine.
God damn this is cringey. And it sucks.
"ain't"
"I'll rob you blind till you lose your mind." What in the fuck does that even mean?????
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkk.
FEEL.
It feels so good, it feels like pain.
It's a feeling I fear won't sustain.
It fills me up, and leaves me drained.
It feels like I'm going insane.
The first two lines are decent. Alliteration is always a plus. The rest is boring.
"It feels like I'm going insane," is one of my least favorite lines in poetry, music, etc. It's so tacky and easy.
DRIVING.
I'm driving in the rain 'cause you're driving me insane.
I'm stomping on the brake 'cause you won't stop this give and take.
I put the pedal to the metal 'cause you won't let this matter settle.
I'm hoping for a crash 'cause you won't let the problem pass.
I'm running past the light 'cause I'm running out of fight
I'm still sitting in this car 'cause you're still taking it too far
Wow, I got my driver's license
I mean it's kind of interesting that I picked a theme for this one and tried to make it work, but I don't think it's any good. Cool idea though, I guess? Maybe??
Nah.
So there's a little peek into what a self-pitying, whiny teenager I was. The main thing I hope can be taken away from reading this is that it's ok to be cringey and awkward. Yeah, it sorta sucks in retrospect. But it also let's you make some ok stuff, and it's fun to look back on. So don't let the fear of being cringey hold you back; making lame, obnoxious shit is the first step to making good shit.
Later :)
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