let's just be honest: it's me talking about myself

Today on a David's Facebook page i saw a picture that was probably 4 years old and it was of the three of us lying on a blanket under a tree. i only scarcely remember the moment it captures, and didn't know the picture existed or that it was significant to David (hi David), so that was a little like a very mild out-of-body experience. i also found a notebook of my poems this evening, which happens more frequently than it should (you see, i was once prolific, and was once as improvisational as i was unorganized, and since i've moved 12049874 times in the last 10 years, it's not so strange to constantly be discovering handfuls of poems in boxes or old dresser drawers.) (i know what you're thinking 'wow, she has really come a long way from her unorganized past.') (And by the way, i know you were thinking it sarcastically, so, haha, very funny.) So i found poems, which is like finding a photo of yourself that you didn't know existed, and finding it in the online equivalent of a picture frame on someone's coffee table. i only remember writing some of the poems, and, as is usually the case, some cause me to smack my knee in delight over my genius, and others are completely laughable and make me cringe multiple times and then i have that debate you sometimes have regarding embarrassing parts of yourself where you try to decide whether to destroy it so no one will ever know how sappy/delusional/talentless you were, or keep it and tuck it away for them to find when you're long gone and then they can decide for themselves to consider you posthumously ridiculous or not. Hello, world's longest sentence, nice to meet you.

Anyway, almost all of the poems were written when i lived in Rome, in those crazy days immediately after 9/11 and when i didn't know if i was for reals dating Josh or if it was love or if alcohol was sinful or not or if i should get a bird tattooed on my foot or not. (seriously, there are bird tattoo sketches all. over. these poems) Evidently it was also the beginning of my affection for ee cummings because there are some verrrry experimental pieces here and i'm quite amused by them. There's also scribbled gems like: "Ideas are styles of nourishment that wash through perception like tsunamis" (no clue what that means but i'm sure i really preened over it at the time) and obvious sides of secret note conversations with Erin and/or Chrystal, like: "Magic Bubbles are always fun. Narcissictic? Ya. Cicero DIES hahaha!" (yes, that's all one conversation) and examples of what was the pinnacle of my learning the Italian language: "Ho Oreos a mia casa." (to this day the only Italian phrases i know are "i have Oreos at my house", "I'm twenty years old", and "How much does this cost?") So i found these poems. A few are about 9/11 and they're crap. Many, many, many are pining, whining and lovesick. One is about Victor Frankenstein and i have no idea why i was thinking that deeply about Frankenstein. The word 'tears' is used way too often and i want to travel back in time and punch 2001 Kallie in the face every time i read it. Out of all that there's only two i'm willing to share here, and i was thinking about whether doing so was audacious or not ("Everyone come see how good i look!") but since i didn't know these poems existed and feel so far removed from the me that wrote them, they hardly feels like they're mine, you know? So. First, an untitled haiku:

Do you ever hear

the pause of my footsteps on

the floor of your mind?

Second, one of those 9/11 poems, with obvious cummings derivations:

September 12 Newspaper

The thinpressed

pulp-and-grey Herald

of destructionD

straction

is silk

onabovehighonoveracrossagainston

the concrete street ,

reveling

inthe kiSSed metamorphosis

of Monday's only Answer

to mourning.