"My teenage angst bullshit has a bodycount."

BeGirlBeGirl Posts: 22
edited April 2004 in Poetry, Prose, Music & Art
Yeah, that's from Heathers. I just wanted to use that quote as the opening to this, my first post with this group.

Okay, this is kind of embarrassing because I'm not really a poetic-type of person, but a few days ago I was feeling nostalgic and was looking through my old Senior scrapbook. Inside I found a semi-Pearl Jam-inspired poem that I wrote my Senior year of high school and I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. So, before I share it with you to get your opinions, interpretations, criticisms, ect., allow me to give a brief background:

Imagine a frustrated, lonely 18-year-old high school student sitting at her kitchen table trying to do her math homework. Her head is so full of anger at her wasted life and so-called friends that she can't concentrate. She's sick of it. Sick of everyone pretending to like each other and then stabbing each other in the back. Sick of the girls whom she loved as a child, but now wouldn't give her the time of day. Sick of wishing she could be brave and unique and voice her opinions and thoughts. Sick of pretending to not care. Sick of wanting more. So, in despiration she rips a piece of paper from her three-ring binder and begins to pour out all the anger and frustration she can. When she's finished, it's like a huge weight has been lifted from her shoulders, and she can't believe she actually just wrote a fucking poem:


my smother anger
demands to be released
so, beloved stranger,
scream for me tonight
empty memories
fill my lonely head
and smiling enemies
haunt my reality
anticipated spears
make me bleed against my will
as unexpected tears
pry open my eyes
darkness shadows light
noone hears my voice
so sing for me tonight
scream loud, beloved stranger.
"Hi...Dick." - Ed (D.C., 5/30/06)
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • BeGirlBeGirl Posts: 22
    That first line should be:

    "my smothered anger"
    "Hi...Dick." - Ed (D.C., 5/30/06)
  • DopeBeastieDopeBeastie Posts: 2,513
    well, right on BeGirl...
    i can probably speak for many of us in saying we've been there...


    welcome
  • I actually like the two narrative voices there: the prose, retrospective voice of the introduction and the younger, immediate voice of the poem. This is what gives the whole text of the post its great feel of tension...

    You know "Jane Eyre", when the older Jane describes herself as a child in the red room overcome with passion and "some species of fit" which makes her see strange ghostly visions? Well, the older Jane is slightly detached from her child sense and tries to describe her with adult "rationality"...but at the end of the book, the adult Jane has another supernatural experience when she hears, telepathically, Rochester, calling to her across the fields from miles away... My point? Our past selves always find their way into our present sense, disturbing the narrative authority of our disclaimers for our past feelings. And this is GOOD. This is what makes much literature often so full of exciting tensions and inner dialogue... so open. I like the whole post! Please, post more... I like the use of juxtaposition between you talking to us and your past voice speaking at the time...it works as a structural whole.

    Excuse me for rambling... I enjoyed it!

    :D
  • ExodusExodus Posts: 212
    ok... this poem was fucking awesome...
    i read it and connected immediately...
    i love the line "so, beloved stranger,
    scream for me tonight"
    so great...
    Between the conception and the creation

    Between the emotion and the response

    Falls the shadow.
  • BeGirlBeGirl Posts: 22
    Thank you very much, Exodus. I've always been almost embarrassed by how meaningful this little poem is to me, but to hear someone else say "I get it" means a lot. I'm guessing your beloved stranger is the same as mine.
    "Hi...Dick." - Ed (D.C., 5/30/06)
  • Abikins70Abikins70 Posts: 12
    i'm only waking up now and having these feelings that you write about..........is it possible to suffer this at 28..........could i really have blackened myself out for that long?
    Abikins70
    xxx

    "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work"
  • DopeBeastieDopeBeastie Posts: 2,513
    Originally posted by Abikins70
    i'm only waking up now and having these feelings that you write about..........is it possible to suffer this at 28..........could i really have blackened myself out for that long?


    could just be you were lucky then, yes???
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