Poems or Eek, She Said, Apparently I was a Fairly Maudlin Teenager

So I have been trying to figure out what to write about today, and must confess that NOTHING was coming to mind… I tried checking out Google for lists of writing exercises and to see what came up on the “I’m Feeling Lucky” search. I looked through previously identified lists of writing exercises. I looked through my list of potential blog topics. Nothing seemed interesting to me, and if it’s not interesting to me, how on earth could it be interesting to anyone who is not me? In my flipping through things, I stumbled upon the remaining three high school poems that I had found not so long ago (see my previous post, “Magic or You Can Be Six Again,” for more on this and for the one poem that I really liked from those good ol’ days). Well, in that post I had more or less promised to share even the overwrought, melodramatic, adjective-laden writings from my not-altogether-misspent youth.

So here they are, for better or for worse. I have honestly got no freaking idea what inspired them or what they reference. As a matter of fact, it is entirely possible that they were not directly related to anything personal and were driven by no more than the usual teenage angst – with which, mercifully, I was not overburdened. Of course, as a teenage girl, I did nonetheless have the mandatory minimal amount of angst – you can’t be a teenage girl without it, I suspect – and apparently I threw it ALL at the wall with these “poems.” Eek, she said. So don’t judge me too harshly for their overblown-ness – think of this as a fine example of my overwhelming self-abasement, my willingness to share even those words I am not necessarily pleased by in the name of my craft… (teehee)
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***
Darkness,
Amidst the hazy fog of confusion,
Has a presence.
It reaches in and shrouds
Even the lightest heart.
Doubt
Is manifested in its wake,
Leaving us isolated and afraid.

Yet Shadows are not immortal.
The waves of human emotion
Transport us beyond the Darkness.
Hope flows in with the onrushing tide
And the shadows shy away with fear.

Of the two primal forces,
It is Light
Which embodies the strength to endure.

***

The phosphorescent glow of the stars’ celestial bodies
Illuminates the night.
Eyes winking and blinking
Reassure me
Of nature’s eternity.
Fading from sight
They valiantly wave goodbye
Like soldiers off to foreign lands
Or distant memories of brighter days.
Yet even in their midnight exodus
Lies the reassuring knowledge of their return.

***

The crystalline sky
Painted in a cream-colored haze
Emulates itself in your eyes.
My heart feels gentle and secure;
You have become my haven.
I turn to you when the world is cold
And my heart needs the warming that
I thought you would provide.

Now the cold is penetrating,
A tangible pressure,
Without hope of reprieve.
Steely fingers hold my heart
In a leaded grip.

You never intended to chip away
The metallic pain of my past
As I had hoped you would.
Instead, you meant to enforce those steely walls
With battlements of emotion
Which would shelter me from reality.

At last, the walls have been torn down.
Alone now, my heart has begun to soften again.

***

So what did I learn from reading these? Well, first of all, apparently that I was anti-title in my wide-eyed youth. Nowadays, I think everything should have a title – a title sets the tone, sets up the drama/conflict/story, and sets the stage for what you are about to read. Without one, the reader has no cues as to what you want him/her to take away and the author has lost a valuable opportunity to provide subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints to the reader on the point of what is coming.

I also learned that, apparently, I have always liked big words. Teehee. This came as no great surprise to me, and likely will not to any of you who have read anything else I have written. I have always loved language and specific words carry specific connotations – not only because of their definitions, but also by the very weight of the letters themselves or the way they feel in your mouth when you read them aloud. That said, it is not always necessary to use dozens of such words in each written piece. Especially when said written piece is only a hundred words long…

And last, but certainly not least, I learned that I was apparently a fairly maudlin teenager who enjoyed dwelling on and exploring the concepts of darkness and pain – even though I was fortunate enough to not have a life full of them. But even in my oh-beautiful-pain musings, you will notice that I still always came back to the power of light to overcome darkness. Now this may surprise those of you who know me, as I have certainly never been accused of being a cock-eyed optimist. I am solidly on the “glass is half-empty” side of the fence and tend to see things from a negative slant. I have always self-defined this as “realism” rather than “pessimism” – but then again, I WAS in law/government relations/public affairs for a long time and spin like that was sort of my bread and butter. But while I have trended toward the negative, I never went all the way to the “screw it, the glass is going to break anyway” position. I guess this is, in its own way, how I have managed to remain a the-sun-will-come-up-tomorrow-(eventually) kind of girl even while wholeheartedly embracing an “it’s always darkest before the dawn” mentality.

So, there you have it – a few pieces of more-than-slightly overblown “poetry,” a few insights into myself as both a writer and a teenager, and a few insights for you into me. All in all, not bad for a day when nothing seemed worth writing, eh? 😉