A long poem.
This still needs a lot of work. I'm mostly just posting this as a way of saving it for myself since I'm typing this on my parents' computer. Enjoy, if you decide to read it. If not, hey that's okay.
To the persons involved in this, or to those who may be affected by it: please, do not take offense.
Eleven days before my
twenty-first birthday
and Trent Reznor from
Nine Inch Nails is back again.
Five years ago, I was
supposed to see them with you if it weren't for
the shoe which my mother
had me under.
The chance
has come again and
where is her shoe but on
my foot
of obligations, budgets, and a
200-mile drive from
Farmington, Maine to
Boston, Massachusetts.
Even though,
I'm sure,
you still went without me,
when I should have gone
was with you.
Not now with acquaintances,
I dare call friends, who want
someone
to make up for the money
which would have
otherwise been wasted
on an empty stadium seat.
But you chose me:
quiet, shy, tongue-tied,
weight and emotion-fluctuating,
zit-faced, jobless, socially-
tactless, four-years-your-junior;
me.
I don't know how. Not after
that day you asked
to meet me at Goodwill to "hang out."
My suspecting mother
dropped me off to a
young woman whom
she didn't know and
didn't like by
the tone of my
eager descriptions.
While sheepishly following you
through aisles of second-hand
clothing, I'd been
wracking my brain trying
to figure out
how I'd come this far with you.
I'd refused your request
to join you
closer to the stage of our
high school's production of
Guys and Dolls,
so you left the seat
where you'd been watching the play from
up until now,
in favor of sitting
next to me,
in the back of the crowd,
on a chair splattered
with dried paint, which
I had purposely avoided.
Somehow, that night,
between Miss Adelaide's
suffering desire to marry Nathan,
you convinced me to go shopping.
And I watched you shop
where all the creative people find
trendy clothes of
real vintage tainted with
body odor stains that
won't wash out.
I'm wearing one myself, this day,
a purchase I'd made
months before, only now realizing
just how self-conscious
it makes me. And I'm unsure if you're
quickly dashing about
the store, seemingly
ignoring me because of it.
Afterwards, we hit up
the Dairy Queen because it's
something to do
in the strip of
commercial chains
that is our suburban home.
Today, the Queen's serving special deals
with special cartoon characters
and you recognize one as
Snagglepuss
which I faintly recall as something my
older brothers might have known.
We sat across from one another
stuffing ourselves with
creamy calories and
awkward silence.
And after laps of your
vanilla frozen yogurt on a cone,
you decide to crack
a joke
about Toyota Celicas being named after
Tom Selleck and I
nervously mistook your words as
genuine
rather than anecdotal. And once you pointed out
the obvious,
that's when I knew
I blew it with you.
For months, I'd watch you
at the head of the class as you grew
pink cow splotches
across your neck and
collar bones until your face
reddened like boiled lobster,
while I listened intently
to your speeches on
Maynard James Keenan
from Tool and A Perfect Circle.
But now I was the
burning-eared lobster-face,
sucking down the cold and bloating
ice-cream as you sat
cool, calm and collected, ready
to take me home.
All along I'd known
you had something
up your sleeve, but never had I
expected you to
call me with
the invitation to see
Reznor and Keenan
live in Worcester, Mass.
with Nine Inch Nails and
A Perfect Circle.
I would have brazenly taken your hand
You and me
We're in this together now
None of them can stop us now
We will make it through somehow
my first gesture of affection towards another woman.
You would have held me close
Metaphor for a missing moment
Pull me into your perfect circle
my still developing body able to fit in your petite frame.
To the persons involved in this, or to those who may be affected by it: please, do not take offense.
Eleven days before my
twenty-first birthday
and Trent Reznor from
Nine Inch Nails is back again.
Five years ago, I was
supposed to see them with you if it weren't for
the shoe which my mother
had me under.
The chance
has come again and
where is her shoe but on
my foot
of obligations, budgets, and a
200-mile drive from
Farmington, Maine to
Boston, Massachusetts.
Even though,
I'm sure,
you still went without me,
when I should have gone
was with you.
Not now with acquaintances,
I dare call friends, who want
someone
to make up for the money
which would have
otherwise been wasted
on an empty stadium seat.
But you chose me:
quiet, shy, tongue-tied,
weight and emotion-fluctuating,
zit-faced, jobless, socially-
tactless, four-years-your-junior;
me.
I don't know how. Not after
that day you asked
to meet me at Goodwill to "hang out."
My suspecting mother
dropped me off to a
young woman whom
she didn't know and
didn't like by
the tone of my
eager descriptions.
While sheepishly following you
through aisles of second-hand
clothing, I'd been
wracking my brain trying
to figure out
how I'd come this far with you.
I'd refused your request
to join you
closer to the stage of our
high school's production of
Guys and Dolls,
so you left the seat
where you'd been watching the play from
up until now,
in favor of sitting
next to me,
in the back of the crowd,
on a chair splattered
with dried paint, which
I had purposely avoided.
Somehow, that night,
between Miss Adelaide's
suffering desire to marry Nathan,
you convinced me to go shopping.
And I watched you shop
where all the creative people find
trendy clothes of
real vintage tainted with
body odor stains that
won't wash out.
I'm wearing one myself, this day,
a purchase I'd made
months before, only now realizing
just how self-conscious
it makes me. And I'm unsure if you're
quickly dashing about
the store, seemingly
ignoring me because of it.
Afterwards, we hit up
the Dairy Queen because it's
something to do
in the strip of
commercial chains
that is our suburban home.
Today, the Queen's serving special deals
with special cartoon characters
and you recognize one as
Snagglepuss
which I faintly recall as something my
older brothers might have known.
We sat across from one another
stuffing ourselves with
creamy calories and
awkward silence.
And after laps of your
vanilla frozen yogurt on a cone,
you decide to crack
a joke
about Toyota Celicas being named after
Tom Selleck and I
nervously mistook your words as
genuine
rather than anecdotal. And once you pointed out
the obvious,
that's when I knew
I blew it with you.
For months, I'd watch you
at the head of the class as you grew
pink cow splotches
across your neck and
collar bones until your face
reddened like boiled lobster,
while I listened intently
to your speeches on
Maynard James Keenan
from Tool and A Perfect Circle.
But now I was the
burning-eared lobster-face,
sucking down the cold and bloating
ice-cream as you sat
cool, calm and collected, ready
to take me home.
All along I'd known
you had something
up your sleeve, but never had I
expected you to
call me with
the invitation to see
Reznor and Keenan
live in Worcester, Mass.
with Nine Inch Nails and
A Perfect Circle.
I would have brazenly taken your hand
You and me
We're in this together now
None of them can stop us now
We will make it through somehow
my first gesture of affection towards another woman.
You would have held me close
Metaphor for a missing moment
Pull me into your perfect circle
my still developing body able to fit in your petite frame.