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IL Mare May 2015
A friend once asked me
What ambition will I let the teachers put
In our high school yearbook
For everyone to see
And I said I'm afraid I do not have one
And he said that how would I succeed in life
If I don't have any ambition
And I've thought about this for awhile
And to justify my answer, I replied that
You need not to have any ambition
To succeed in life
I said you just needed to be happy and
Maybe I should let them put "To become happy" in the yearbook and you know what?
It ocurred to me that I never even give a single ****
About what the other students might think or what their parents might think
Except for what my parents might think
But usually, they don't care as long as it's who I am and what I want
And I'm thankful for that

But I've always wondered
Why I never had one
Never thought of becoming anything
Now that I'm in my senior year which is a crucial part
Of my career orientation
And I'm scared so much
I'm scared that before
I wanted everything
Yet now I end up wanting nothing
And I wondered so much
On how I changed so gradually
From being a ball of blazing fire to a godforsaken blackhole
Though I know change is inevitable,
I didn’t expect to lose my heart in the process

Once, I've always dreamed to become a doctor
Because I wanted to heal scars and unspoken miseries and no
I'm not just after using scalpels or stethoscopes or syringes
Or cutting off people's brains
I wanted to fix the broken
Rip my being into shreds to keep them whole
I wanted sacrifice and salvation

And I've always dreamed to become a soldier
I don’t care how silly it sounds
I wanted to protect people and wanted to taste the bitterness
Of war and blood and death
I wanted to know death and see all the worst
And be exposed to them
That I wouldn't have any choice
But to be brave for myself and the others
Because death? It could be sweeter this way
To die for a cause, to die for somebody
I wanted sacrifice and salvation

And I've always dreamed to become a teacher
Beacuse I wanted to influence someone's life
Give them power to stand up for themselves
Watch a bud blossom into a beautiful flower
And then I would make thousands of memories
Because at the same time
I'm learning through connections and bonds and warmth
And that, would be one of the greatest things
I will cherish in my life forever
I wanted sacrifice and salvation

And then I aspired to be a lawyer,
To serve and give way to justice because that's all we have to know
And I realized defending a criminial would be unavoidable
And I've always sworn to myself
That if that happens, I'd rather burn myself to death
Because I should only send the right people in jail
Those people who deserve to rot in the cells and cling to metal bars
I wanted sacrifice and salvation

And I watched the conversation end
And feel my heart pound in my ears
And I cried so much that night
That I realized I seldom cry
Because I thought I was better
And I was terrified because
Nothing hurts more than not knowing
What you could actually want in this sad world
Because that means you might as well be nothing

A hollow
A ******* void
And I don't want to be like that
Nobody does
So i think and think and think
What do I actually want?

And the wind blew
Leaves fell onto the ground
People wheezed and laughed and breathed through their noses
And it slapped me in the face
I've never been stable in my life
I've concealed my greed up until now
I dreamed so much that I denied reality
Each day, making myself believe
That I wanted nothing but I actually
Wanted THE power to be everything

Be everything in a world I was bound to craft
I wanted to create moons and stars and storms and unicorns
And wars and tides that tell "Hey, humans can actually create worlds."
I wanted to be out of my control
I didn’t want to settle on a skin I was enclosed in, I was held captive by
So I changed whatever's written to
The paper I had submitted for the yearbook
And wrote "To be a Writer" and nothing else
This was supposed to be a slam poem but I don't have that talent to be so raw in front of an audience so I let the words scream at the paper instead. Hehe.
Why does it feel like when you sign a yearbook
You're admitting that you might never
See it's owner again after you part?
It feels as if you're goodbye
Rather than see ya next time
It almost feels like for every word written
There is a tear to match it
As you pour your feelings
And memories onto the page
You are silently whispering
Possibly the last words they'll ever hear from you
The yearbook stands as your final goodbye
Even if its not the very last moment you see them
It stands as something they can show their kids when messing about old times
That can look back upon in old age
That can reminisce with when lonely
And say
These are the people I knew
These are the people said goodbye to all that time ago
The yearbook is a symbol ending
That is to be celebrated as well as mourned
Brandon Apr 2011
Target on the faces of my friends
The headlines detail more school shootings
One-sided consequences of uneducated masses
I’m an ******* but you made me this way
Gain knowledge of the whole truth
Before the mind sets in stone
Outside the main entrance
Count them off
One by one
My end
Our end
Tawanda Mulalu Dec 2014
I.

This year I've done nothing remarkable,
because that wasn't on my syllabus.

But,

I did learn how to make conversation
with an empty locker,

because you weren't one of the students
who'd had gone off on Exchange.


  II.

This year I've done nothing worth remembering,
because my timetable had no place for memories.

But,

I did learn how to inject meaning
into moments were there were none,

because you weren't one of the poems
in my last English paper.


  III.

This year I've done nothing for my soul,
because I'm just a candidate number.

But,

I did learn how to learn how my examiners
think. Past papers are the future,

and you aren't one of those questions
that I'll get full marks for again.


  IV.

And this year,

time will pass itself,
killing everything

but my memories,
but my final grades.


V.

And this year,

time will have passed itself,
having killed everything.

Even my memories.
Even my final grades.

VI.

As everything

becomes everything again,
the year next;

with another you,
with another syllabus.
New Year: Old ****.
yvan sanchez Sep 2018
summer nights—cold soul
drunken anecdote
the flow of ink so delicate
to massacre the old for the new

winter morning—warm hands
littered streets
the sound of your vowels and consonants
just the right consistency

chiseled gravestones—life in your eyes
sound of footsteps
the burn of your last words to me
inverted and sweet

the universe owes us no due;
the six minutes i treasured you—

Paradise, 2018
John Stone Oct 2010
Hardly thought of yet fondly remembered
moments redacted from memory
adoration and anguish become friendship and folly

A shameless return to missed opportunity
words welling up
the grave of guilt

Torn out but never removed
the heart’s debt to doubt
no pang more painful
Meagan Moore  Mar 2014
Yearbook
Meagan Moore Mar 2014
Film developer cacophonies, and journalistic hoarding
My friends wanted to record our last year –
Accurately – not succinctly
Abstractly – and yet, directly, bluntly
Vividly – in photography, quote notebooks, Dictaphone diatribes

That’s hilarious – scribble it down.
Can you repeat your brilliance?
If you could paraphrase that – well…what would you say?
Take another one. She wasn’t smiling.

I don’t want to smile.

My friend sidles up beside me – beaming grin
Sticking her fingers into my mouth
Pulling opposite and up
And her fingers tasted like
The musty pages of books without pictures.
Please follow the link
https://bogpan.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/world-poetry-yearbook-2014/
your name Oct 2014
driven by the medium of exchange.
dare remember from where it is you came.
dance in the smoke that once brought moths to flame.
incandescent, and full of shame.
buried in books to keep you insane.
hoping happy people do the same.
must you keep her emotions tame
wrong way in a one way lane.
Dimitri Terrinov Aug 2016
Yearbook photos
That time of year where I had to look my "best" for a book that people could look back on and remember insignificant things about each other
Where people would fondly look back at all the people they called best friends
Or where people with bitterness in their hearts angrily cross out the faces of those who did them wrong
Where people scribbled "I love you" and "Have a great summer!" in the inside cover

In middle school, I took a chisel point Sharpie and blacked out the people who I hurt so I didn't have to face them
But the more the pages rubbed together, the more the Sharpie rubbed away, exposing their smiles
So then I glued the pages together so it was like they weren't even there
But the more I thumbed through the book, the more I could feel the thickness of the glue and acknowledged that they were on that hidden page
So, against my mothers wishes, I took it down to the tunnel under the road and burned it
She'd ask if I had it from time to time, and I'd tell her every time that I had left it at school on the last day before summer vacation

— The End —