September 11, 2001

 September 11, 2001

Bright blue sky
Sun shining
Golden silence

CRASH!
Shattered silence
Shattered lives
Shattered hopes
Shattered dreams
Shattered.

The Aftermath
Gray
Smoke
Screams
Debris everywhere
Dust fills the air
No room to breathe
A city stifled
A nation stifled
Freedom stifled
Snuffed out by the flaming ash
The foundations
Of a nation
Shaken to the core

(*Note: I wrote this poem at 10:35 pm on September 11, 2001.  I was two weeks into my freshman year of college, my first time away from home.  Thousands of miles away, worrying about friends and family members in NY and DC.  This event absolutely shaped my generation, as we ventured through the cusp of adulthood in its immediate aftermath.  I feel like this poem is one of my better ones, especially considering that I was only 17 when I wrote it.  Today feels like the right day to share it.)

The First Month of Junior Year

 The First Month of Junior Year

I return
To this place I've been yearning for
But it isn't the same
There's something missing
A hole
Emptiness

I walk through the same familiar places
See so many familiar faces
But it isn't the same
Emptiness

In chairs where you used to sit
Smiling up at me
Or the hallways we walked down together
Emptiness
Everywhere

I can't escape
Walking down the street, I see a car that looks like yours
I put my head down and walk faster
Before I start to cry

Everywhere and everything
It isn't the same
There's something missing
You.

Gradually I grow accustomed
Hang out with friends
Laughing, talking, giggling
(emptiness)
Making plans
Joking
Having fun

Daily life continues
Classes, reading, homework
(emptiness)
Learning and growing
The college experience

I walk around with a smile on my face
Saying "hello" to people I pass
Wishing that somehow it was you in front of me
Always with an encouraging smile
Brightening up my every day
With your presence

I go on with my life
Doing all the normal things
I am no longer depressed
And yet...
Still there is something missing
An emptiness in everything I do
It hides behind superficial happiness
But underneath, I am still yearning
To return home
Where the heart is
My heart is still with you.

(Note: This poem is dated September 29, 2003, about one month into my junior year of college.  It was written about a specific person at the time, but over the years, I've come back to it a few times in other situations, and it still seems to resonate in some ways.  I really love this one, I think it's one of the best I've ever written in terms of how well it expresses what I was feeling.  I have a LOT of poetry from this era of my life, and I've never shared most of it publicly before, because it's very personal and intense, and also because it was a complicated situation.  I'm not sure how much more of it I'll end up sharing here, but this one in particular has been screaming to be shared for a long time, so I'm excited to get it out there!) 

Who Am I?

Who Am I?

Who am I?
I am whoever you make me out to be.
I am a figment of the world's imagination.
Nothing real.
No sense of self.
No me.
Nobody.
I am.

(Note: This is a poem I wrote in college, during a period of time when I was depressed and struggling to find...anything, really.  It's dated September 3, 2003, which puts it a couple of weeks into my junior year.  It actually resonated with me much more later on, in my mid-to-late-20s.  Anytime something keeps coming back like that, I know it hit on something true.  I really love this one!)

Wonderment

 Wonderment

She stands there and sees
The beautiful breeze
Riffling through the trees.

She says to herself, "I have never seen
Anything so beautiful as that scene
Of the grass and the trees in waves of green."

As she stands in the field,
She cries out, "Yield!
To the waving grass!" And so she keeled.

Onto her knees she falls and cries
As the plants live and the grass dies
And away to heaven it flies.

All in a split second,
As she is being beckoned, beckoned
Into the woods I surely reckoned

Would bring her peace and happiness.

(Note: This is a poem I wrote when I was about 11 years old.  Despite the grammatical issues - poetic license? - I still think it's the best poem I've ever written.  It's definitely my favorite!)