Friday, 22 May 2009

• Twenty year old poems

  Last night I found a bunch of journals -- maybe all of my journals -- from when I was in college, and decided to look through them. I was a talented 20-year old, with all of the same hang-ups I have today but with 95% less responsibility.
  In a journal from the end of 1988, I found a couple of poems I think are worth sharing here. There were written with a pink pen, so I've tried to match it here.
  
  Self-love
  When I look in the mirror
  now
  I know I'll never match the Barbie doll &
  height-weight chart
  image of my former fantasy life
  because what I am
  is beautiful
  what I am
  is.
  I see the well rounded body of
  a 20 year old product
  of years of wanting
  to be
  someone
  else. And considering
  I'm still me,
  there isn't really anything
  to indicate that this
  body is not a
  perfectly wonderful body
  that houses a quite
  capable and
  eccentric mind.
  This short and wide self
  that I thought was a lowly
  shrub
  rather than a graceful
  tree
  is actually not lowly but
  magnificent
  in it's shrubbiness
  with bushy hair, quite healthy
  and strong branches
  sturdy limbs and a
  quite handsome trunk
  a tree not dwarfed
  for it was never meant to be a
  willow
  or a
  sycamore
  but a
  flowering jade or
  pink petaled hawthorne.
  
  (this next one doesn't have a title)
  
  I wish
       upon a
            frog prince
                 and a wishbone
                      and thousands of birthday candles
                           that I were
                                a
                                   desirable fairy
                                        princess
  with flowing hair some color other than mine
       and clear skin and
            a lithe, slender form
                 and no perceptible
                     imperfections
                         so contradictory to my present state
                             of
                                imperfection
  
  After which, I've written this, in huge pink letters:
  
  ANGRY ! 
  I AM
  ANGRY!!!
  
  

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