25

list poem (six months ago)

Six months ago there were lots of things I had.
I had three grandparents,
over a thousand dollars in savings,
and a boyfriend who would play with his computer instead of me.
I had a 3.516 gpa,
a grad school all ready to go,
and no fun in college.
I had taken nine English courses,
memorized Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven,"
and never read Kurt Vonnegut.
I had clean clothes all the time,
a sense of duty, responsibility, and appreciation,
and a disdain for my jail-bound brother.
six months ago I had a plan for the future,
a wedding on my mind,
and a future in domesticity.
I had old, fading scars,
my wisdom teeth,
and an alarming propensity to cry during The Office.
You should have seen me in the theaters when we watched Wall-E.
Six months ago my parents knew nothing and felt no need to cry.
my boyfriend's mom encouraged me to call her mom,
and I liked to listen to the Killers and Death Cab for Cutie.
Six months ago I had something that I called stability,
as well as something I called direction,
and something else I called motivation.
I had something else I never paused to identify,
a niggling feeling that ate at the back of my brain
when I was falling asleep. I wanted to fit into
the stereotype but the stereotype was suffocating me
whenever I stopped to draw a breath -
which was not often.
Six months ago i thought I had everything that I needed for my life to be complete.
I thought I had no worries.
It turns out that I had plenty of those,
and just not much experience to go with.
Some of these things I still have.
Most of these I do not.
But I'll tell you what.
I no longer watch The Office,
and the last time I did,
my eyes were dry.

24

List poem

I Want

I want to be with you, cute you
and I want us to be in facebook pictures together
that show us in our perfect summer
and I want to be young again
although I am not old,
I want to be young again the way I used to be.
I want to be less tired and I want to sleep less,
I want to spend my nights raging, loving, drinking, smoking, partying,
and I want to spend my days brilliantly.
I want every day to be golden,
and I want every horse to have a spirally white horn.
I want you to drive a white mustang,
and I want everyone to be happy,
including and especially me.
I want to go back in time and steal me-who-I-was
and make her change places with me-who-I-am
so that I can pretend these ideals will happen.
I want to believe that we will have that golden perfect summer
and I want to pretend, no, believe, no, experience me
being unbroken.
I want to cherish the idealism I once had
and I want to hold on to the fearlessness
that has faded because of pain.
I want to rewind time and meet you three years ago,
both of us three years ago,
and that's when I want us to fall in love.
Not here, and not now.
I want that to happen, because I think things could have been perfect then.
I want for things to have been perfect then.