Really Dramatic High School Poetry

I unearthed something mortifying the other day...

High. School. Poetry

Is there anything more painful than taking yourself so seriously that you're writing deep shit before you know shit? I wrote a boatload of poetry in high school. My poems filled up notebooks and oozed out of desk drawers. It was scrawled in the margins of my lecture notes for LORD OF THE FLIES. Heck, I even wrote a poem about LORD OF THE FLIES. For real. (Note to self: Find the poem you wrote about LORD OF THE FLIES.)

I don't fault myself for writing poetry as a teenager. I wouldn't take it back. But man, is it funny to read it now.

Here's a poem I wrote when I was 17 and a boy broke up with me. The poem is called SHATTERED which pretty much tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about a poem I wrote in high school.

SHATTERED

Gazing upon a silent lake
its glassy waters are still and calm
then suddenly terrorized by the toss of a stone.
The moment is shattered
and the picture is clearer.
Reality takes over.
All too soon, one realizes
nothing in this world is perfect.
Nothing is what we expect it to be.
I expected you to be beside me
to walk in the rain
and sit by the fire.
But you took the hand of someone else
and you're seeing things
through their eyes,
fulfilling their dreams
and highest expectations.
You left me alone.
I was so naive to think the sun might never set
to think the winds might never blow
to think the leaves might never fall
to think the sky might never rain
to think nothing would ever change
and that you'd be here,
with me,
forever.
But much like the picture I painted in my mind:
a silent lake,
its glassy waters so still and calm,
we have been destroyed
in the blink of an eye.


© Copyright The '80s  Marisa Reichardt. All Rights Reserved.

Question: Did you ever destroy anything in the blink of an eye? Did you write a poem about it?

The Truth About My Sixth Grade Romance

For one week, the most popular boy in the sixth grade liked me. He had floppy blonde surfer hair that hung down over his eyes, checkerboard Vans and two-tone OP cord shorts. His voice was deeper than the other boys’ voices in my class.

He had big hands.

That week, we ate lunch together. We swapped halves of our sandwiches, turkey and PB&J, and talked about a TV show from the night before or a new video we liked on MTV.

By Thursday, there were whispers that he was going to ask me to go with him. There was talk that it would happen that very day, right after lunch. The bell rang and I was jittery as I lined up with my class, standing next to my bestie clutching the tetherball I’d checked out from the P.E. equipment bin from our classroom.

I leaned out from the line and dared a glance behind me, casually trying to spot him. He was at the end of the line, second to last, and he was looking at me. His floppy hair fell into his face. He tossed it back with a flick of his neck instead of smoothing it back with his hand.

So. Fucking. Cool.

We walked back to class single file and even  though I could feel him looking at me from the back of the line, he didn’t ask me to go with him.

We returned our balls at the same time to the equipment bin but he didn’t say anything.

We sat quietly in our desks while our teacher graded papers but he still didn’t say anything.

That afternoon, our class watched a nature documentary about the ocean. I couldn’t concentrate. I could only see him watching me through the dust-filled light coming off the movie projector. He sat on one side and I sat on the other. I leaned across my arms on my desk, feigning interest in octopi when I was really more interested in his freckles.

Halfway through the movie, he passed me a note through the dust-filled light. 

The note said that I was pretty.

I folded it over and over again until it formed a tiny triangle that I shoved into the back pocket of my 501s.

The next morning we both had school patrol duty along with three others. We wore red windbreakers, yellow helmets and see-through white pants. I blew a whistle and helped kids safely cross the street to campus. He held a stop sign that he jutted out into traffic, stopping cars in their tracks whenever I blew my whistle.

After our shift, we retreated to the storage closet next to the cafeteria on the ground floor of our school. We hung our jackets and helmets in our cubbies and sat down on the wooden bench along the wall, not wanting to return to class. We had five minutes and everyone on my shift wanted to stretch out our freedom because in sixth grade, we didn’t have that much freedom.

We heard the janitor coming, pushing his squeaky cart down the hall, so we pulled the door shut, flicked off the light and vowed to remain silent. We huddled together on the bench, stifling giggles in the dark, hoping we wouldn’t get caught.

The boy and I sat right next to each other. His knee was against my knee. His arm was against my arm. Our backs were against the wall.

And the dark had changed everything.

The energy in that storage closet shifted.

He reached over and grabbed my hand. Nobody could see us. Holding hands in the dark was something only we would know. He leaned over and whispered into my ear.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said.

I was the only person who heard him because his words were whispery enough to be drowned out by the giggles and the fart jokes of the other three sixth graders in the storage closet.

He leaned over.

I was ready.

I wanted this.

I could sense him in the dark, his lips approaching mine.

Should I close my eyes? I wondered.

My hand was sweaty but I didn’t let go of his hand. Instead, I gripped it tighter, willing him to stay in the moment.

But then he pulled back. The lights went on and we blinked against their sudden brightness. He looked at me like he knew that was going to happen.

We didn’t kiss.

Instead, we stood up and brushed ourselves off even though we didn’t have anything stuck to us. We hoisted our backpacks onto our shoulders and filed out of the storage closet and up the orange-carpeted ramp to our classroom.

The boy hung back, slouching, behind us all.

By lunch, that boy liked someone new. She had blonde hair and wore a bra that you could see through her Ralph Lauren polo shirt.

He liked her a lot, I heard.

He was going to ask her to go with him.

He had told his friends.

He had written her a note. 

They were going to last a whole entire week.

© Copyright 2013  Marisa Reichardt. All Rights Reserved.

Question: Did your sixth grade romance come to fruition? Or were you too young and clueless to know what to do?

A Documentation of My Trip to Target

Because I live in the world I go to Target a lot. Have you seriously ever noticed all the random stuff they sell there? Inspired by the randomness, I bring to you 

A Documentation of My Trip to Target. 

Here we go!

I love the home goods available at Target. But let's be honest, some of this stuff is just plain weird.

Very yellow "Decorative Tortoise Shell" because why not?

Got crabs? What about decorative crabs?

Here are some cool shorts if you want everyone to know that you're a dude who totally parties hard.

I'll bet money that the guy who wears these says "YOLO." A lot.

If you have a cat who likes to party, Friskies has you covered. 

There's gonna be so much pussy at this party!

Don't forget toys for the kids! 

Look! It's "Getting Married with a Couple of Kids Barbie."

Guns for kids.

Hungry? Don't forget to get some chocolate for breakfast. 

Straight up chocolate cereal because you can.

If you're looking for religion, then you've come to the right place.

God books.

God candles.

Here's a sweet backpack if you're heading to Woodstock in 1969 or college in 1993.

No Ben & Jerry's employees' shirts were harmed in the making of this backpack.

Pink sporting equipment. What is the point of this?

It's okay for girls to play sports because it's pink! 

Finally! Something I actually want!

Secret voice changer? That's rad.

I'm on the move to find more randomness.

Later.

© Copyright 2013  Marisa Reichardt. All Rights Reserved.