One of the best and worst parts about moving is finding stuff you've forgotten about and the stuff you hold on to, even though you never look at or use it anymore. Some years ago I carefully transcribed the poems I wrote in high school and college into a spiral journal and in the years since, I've added scraps and fragments written here and there. Some of the poems are good, most are just plain angsty, all are a record of my then-life. Here are a few I wrote in high school.

Mislead

I feel strong

Yet there's no muscle to show

I feel intelligent

Yet grades don't reflect it

I feel love

Yet spend weekends alone,

         never invited.

I feel power

Yet I'm never a leader,

        always a follower.

I feel truth

Yet I am told lies,

        still believe lies.

I feel beauty

        then look in the mirror.

I feel rich

Yet I can't attain my desires.

I feel honored

Yet never rewarded

I feel pain

Yet no one cares.

                    -1997 (What strikes me about this one is how it was written out of pain and hyperbole and therefore filled with inaccuracies about my high school experience. Bless my 17 year old heart.)

Hope

The cold air creeps across the surface,

Reminders that winter still reigns

Amidst yearnings for spring and summer.

Snow blocks all excapes-

No place to run and no place to hide.

There's no alternative but to

Face the mistery in the bleek, barren day,

And then wonder if Spring might come again

Or if winter is just a life sentence.

There's love and hate

But nothing in between,

Except for sunlight struggling

To shine through before it's strangled again.

A leaf hangs from the branch

Its owner is old, the roots are firm

As is its icy hold.

Restraining, pushing fingers

Not allowing an escape or a survival.

But the leaf knows

It knows that spring might come again

And then it will begin to live.

So it waits, ignores the cold,

Forgets the pain, and remembers that

Spring could come

One day soon.

                             -1998 (written in my senior year Advanced English Seminar class with Dr. Langlas)

Paul

I met him once

Enough to read his eyes

I know him well

But really not at all

The idea engraved on my heart,

My mind and my soul

One brief moment

Trapped in time forever

And how can I forget

Him I never knew.

                              -1997 (Note: it turns out you can forget "him I never knew." No clue who Paul is.)