I don’t know how to begin a poem
I don’t know how to start to write down the words in my heart and sow them
I don’t know how to make a proper rhyme or rhythm
I don’t know how make something sound genuine but polished
I don’t know how to show both my creativity and my knowledge
I don’t know how
I don’t know
I don’t…
In reality there is not much I can say
I can write for an entire day
And only have one line written
On display.
Man, why am I here?
Am I just trying to prove to myself I’m deep and clear?
When in reality these words mean nothing
But yet i craft them together to try and make it something
ABC, twenty-seven letters mixed together again and again
Mix in some punctuation and call it win
When really
What do I have to say
I’m seventeen, young, and have never known pain
Maybe years from now, when I’ve lived past my mother
I will look back and see me as another.
It’s odd,
For someone so privileged in their life-
I was loved from the moment I was born
And probably will be loved till I die-
But still why do I feel so much pain?
It’s not the same as they described it
Symphonies of screams or echoes of rain
The crushing memories or nightmare at night
The blood pumping in a sudden fight or flight
No
It’s just quiet here
A damp room
A lonely light bulb
It’s empty
It’s cold
It's too foggy to be clear
I've never been in love
I haven’t loved a single thing my life
And I know everyone says its my age or my youth
That I just have to wait and wait until I meet the right person
Then my world would explode into light
My heart would beat and threaten to burst out my chest
A pulse stopping, deep love that would blow out the rest
Yeah
I don’t think that will happen
And maybe it’s just me being a cynical teenager who pretends to know what’s happening
Who's convinced that somehow my experience is different from the thousands of people who have already lived
Or maybe it’s because I don’t work that way
Maybe there’s a gear broken inside of me
Something that won’t fit
Because each time I try to love something
I’ll get hit with my own thoughts, something that nags me
And says
You don’t know this is real
You aren’t happy
And it’s ridiculous I know
But the feelings true
How can you love when the only thing you know is real is you?
Huh
For all I know,
This is inside my mind,
And i’ve been dead weeks ago
It’s hard to love
And it’s hard to get lost
When your thoughts are always caught up in the fact that these feelings are apart of some plot
That the feeling ‘love’
Is just a chemical
That convinces animals to breed and is nothing more than mechanical
I want
To believe it’s something more
But my mind likes to rebell
And ignore every score
Maybe that’s why I can never fall in love
I’ve met good people who would’ve been perfect for such
But their love has never affected me much
Maybe that’s why I’ve never been able to dream
Because I know the real world and it is as much as it seems
I’ve never had large desires
Because some part of me sees it as pointless
It’s hard to dream big in word where sometimes you're not ever sure if you exist
And yet I balk at the thought of death
Of the afterlife
Or nothingness
Sometimes when I’m in class and the bell is about to ring
And everyone talks and jokes around like it’s not a thing
I’ll look around
And suddenly feel
As if I’m the only one whose real
As if I’m the only one who sees the world from outward perspective
Like a narrator
An onward looker on the main action
Aware of how everything is so temporary
Dramatic irony isn’t so fun when you know what it carries
But I know I’m not
The only one who feels this way
A concoction of hormones and disorders to start my day
I’ll probably grow up
Do what my parents did
Normal job, marriage, one or two kids
I’ll look back at my teenage dramaticism
And roll my eyes
Thinking that I knew nothing
My emotions too big for my size
But sometimes
I hope I remember what rain felt like in september
Or the fact I wrote that line without actually know what it meant
Or how I worked and worked until my brain was completely spent
****
What am i even doing here?
Writing a poem no one will ever hear
Lines between lines
That could show my world clear
I should just shut up
I don’t know what I’m saying
I don’t know how to write a poem
I don’t know if I’m praying
I don’t know how
I don’t know
I don’t
I…
I am alone.
