Saturday, December 4, 2010

Angsty poetry, coming right up!

Recently my macbook crashed and burned beyond all recognition. From the flames of offgassing plastic I was able to salvage most of my data, including all of my writing from college (I was an English major). I took a creative writing class, and also wrote poetry somewhat often. It was almost all angsty. I was not a cheerful flower.

I give you... "The Memory of Suffering" (heavy, right?)

Where does he go
When the tears are spent
on his dirty pillowcase?
He is too tired to sleep,
too sore from sobbing,
too restless to lay still.

His hands stopped shaking hours ago.
The only sounds:
the window air conditioner, grunting and shuddering at irregular intervals;
the repetitive clicking of the ceiling fan.
He is shivering.




He is not shivering.
The air conditioner is not shuddering.
The ceiling fan still clicks.

His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth.
He licks his lips and they taste salty underneath the dryness.
His face feels tight and clumsy.
His jaw hangs slack.
The ceiling has no new patterns to offer.

6 comments:

Una said...

Wow. Thank god you were able to save your writing from college. I can remember some angsty art school days. When i look back now it seems so cliche and comical. I like the older cheerful flower days.

Allison said...

I remember the angst of youth. I was going through a pile of old journals that I found in my parents' basement this summer. I wasn't much of a cheerful flower either ;)

neffbot said...

Curvy - definitely, I would have been so sad if it had all been lost!

Allison - I mean, I can definitely remember being cheerful in college... I guess I never wrote about the cheerful bits though!

Anika http://www.byanika.com said...

thank you for sharing! I did a lot of angsty writing in my teens too. Still have it, and a lot of it still rings true, as a manifest to an important and shit part of my life lol. never want to be a teen again, but I now I work with them lol

<3 Anika
http://wwww.sweetfacedstyle.blogspot.com
Twitter: @AnikaSweetface

Anonymous said...

What teenager/early 20s isn't full of angst? Its good that you found it. I found all my stories I'd written last time I went back to my mum's. I used to write to my friend who moved away when we were 16 every week with a story for her to read.

neffbot said...

Thanks Anika - I know what you mean, it really is good to still have the writing to remember what I was going through and how it felt to be a teenager.

Monkey - you are totally right about that :)

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