a few

Ok, so some of my poems were really bad. Well, maybe not really bad but just so personal and heart-wrenching in that way that only teenage poems can be that I knew if I put them here and shared them suddenly they would seem shallow and stupid and I'd forget what they really meant to me. I am glad that I saved a lot of them (I have a journal of my "best works" from the end of high school through college) because they certainly do renew my perspective on where I came from and remind me how seriously I took myself, and perhaps that I had cause to at some points. But there were a few that I re-read and maybe they weren't as horrible... or at least, they didn't come from that place in your soul that seems to disappear with the onset of your twenties. Here's one I'll share... according to my journal it's called "When", although if I had written now I'd probably title it something different.

When I was younger I would watch the raindrops chasing each other down the window.
I would always place mental bets on the fastest raindrop
and I was always disappointed when one of the smaller
ate the others
and somehow won the race.
It seemed a bit like cheating to me.
When I was younger I took naps before dinner because I liked the way the silverware woke me up and the house smelled warmer when I opened my eyes and my parents' voices danced up the stairs vibrating and happy.
When I was younger the boys I liked were scrawny and goofy
and chased me around the playground with sideways, toothless smiles
and they never wanted to talk, really.
They were happy to chase and then be chased
and that was fine with everyone involved.
When I was younger being scared usually only happened at night
or in the presence of a mean boy named Fred
or a large girl named Lenore who would pick me up and spin me around.
But it was easy to hide under the covers and wish it all away on the memory of a star.
When I was younger the best days were spent outside with a ball from the grocery store
and my sisters thought I was super-cool.
When I was younger I built sandcastles by dipping my hand in a bucket of wet sand and dribbling
it
in
piles,
creating castles for the gods and goddesses of the sea.
When I was younger I put diving rings around my ankles and swam like a mermaid through aquamarine, chlorinated oceans,
befriended by dolphins and chased by sharks
that oddly resembled my sisters.
When I was younger opening the box of last year's summer clothes was like shopping all over again and jelly sandles never went out of style.
When I was younger hammocks were sailing ships
and lightening bugs told me summer secrets.