What is and what could've been

Two poems today, both by Laura Haskins-Bookser.


Regrets

I am seventeen
and I just came home
so drunk and
so high
that I've just pissed myself

My mother is alone, asleep in her room

I rush to clean up after myself
trying to be quiet
but when I get out of the shower
my mother is standing in the hallway

Screaming at me
in a rage that I rarely saw
Beating on me with her fists
slapping me wildly

Do you want to be like your father?
Do you want to be a drunk?

I dodge out of her way
make it to my room
and remember one year earlier

I sat my parents down
Told them I thought I might have
A PROBLEM

She screamed at me that day as well

You don't need help
You just want attention

So while she is
still yelling in the hallway

I lock the door
ignoring her
and fall asleep quickly
because of my lethargic state

The next morning
the masks go back on
the superficial talk of the day begins

I think to myself
It's only Saturday

I still have another night of partying
before my weekend is over

Sleep Deprived

I slept
slept like a baby
a normal baby, that is
who doesn't survive on
three-hour blocks of sleep

I slept
without one interruption
without one peep from your crib
without any noise at all
from you

I panicked
and jumped out of bed
raced to your crib
on the other side of the room

You are not breathing
I am sure of it
I cry out
call your name
pick you up
wake you up

Oh no

I slept
slept like a baby
and could have gone back to sleep
if only I hadn't woken you
from the deep sleep you were enjoying

You scream
and I laugh and I hug you
that's the baby I know
that's the baby I love

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Black Coffee

By Cathy C., Damascus, MD

“I don’t care where you go or what you do!” That’s what he said to me. That’s what he said to me on the sixty-third day after I fell in love.

It started quickly, but it always starts quickly. Love was classic, and love was smooth. If there were a soundtrack to those first four months, it would consist of nothing but Frank Sinatra songs. The cover would be black and white. A picture of a coffee house. And that’s where we met: a coffee house. Classy. He ordered a medium coffee, black. I ordered, well, I don’t remember, but I remember he ordered his coffee black.

After the quick start, after the laughing and the crazy nights and the dreamy eyes, everything slowed. It always does. But mostly you just don’t notice what speed you’re going. Once I fell for him, though, it was all about which love song on the radio reminded me of him. Love is like that. It’s waiting in line to check out in the grocery store and taking all the lovey-dovey quizzes in the trashy magazines. And it’s all about those music videos full of slow-motion shots of two people running their hands along each other’s skin. Once I had fallen, I kept falling – like Alice down the rabbit hole. Incoherent objects and instances flew by me as I fell, for what seemed like eternity. Contrary to popular belief, eternity is actually only 63 days long.

It doesn’t matter anymore what started it. It doesn’t matter anymore who said what, it doesn’t matter why we said it. But I gotta tell you, coming out of love feels a lot more like falling. And I stood on his door step, after the screaming and after the tears. Calm, collected I stood there for a good four minutes. Not moving, just letting the rain soak into my white shirt. Of course it had to be raining; it rained like someone had just died in a Disney movie. And of course I had to be wearing white, because everyone knows you have got to look the most pathetic after a breakup and I don’t think standing in the rain for four minutes in a white shirt could be any more pathetic. It didn’t matter how it ended to me, just that it ended.

“I don’t care where you go or what you do!” he had yelled. A cup of black coffee was all I could think about. If you are ever in a coffee house and a man is drinking his coffee black, don’t be intrigued. It’s not a sign of mystery, it’s not a sign of suaveness. Because his heart is as decorated as his coffee. He is empty, which is tricky because even when you attain something empty, you still feel like you’ve gotten something. Don’t be fooled. You can marvel at the pretty package all you want; but eventually you will open it. Empty.

So I got on a plane to the East Coast. I am gonna go wherever I want. I am gonna do whatever I want. When I land in New England, the first thing I’ll do is put on my cutest outfit. Then I am gonna go to the nearest coffee house and stand right next to the cream and sugar.

© teenink.com
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And the world spins madly on

© Masha

A spin on my photo from here.

BTW, the title is a lyric from a great song by The Weepies.


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The car ride home

"I first fell in love when I was 14," this man had told me.
I'm not sure why;
Silence was taboo on this 20-minute drive.
He asked if I had read Gone With the Wind.
No, I told him.
"You should," he replied,
"Those kinds of stories are good for your age.
That's when I read them." And then he proceeded
To tell me about his first love.
"I dated her for two weeks.
Man, 14," he repeated.
I smiled and read the license plates of cars we passed by.
"We held hands and all of that."
I looked down at my legs
And watched the sun burn the car leather right where I sat.
I usually hate these lazy scorching May afternoons -
always more of a winter girl -
but today was different.
"And walked in the park late under the moon."
He laughed.

With his left hand on the wheel,
He left the other motionless on the side
Still unable to break the habit of his old stickshift.
"I even cried
About her. Once. But after two weeks,
I was done."
His happy nostalgic smile nicely complemented his graying hair
Which looked white under the sun.
He wasn't old or anything;
He had a 10 year old daughter
And a worrying wife
Who, like a gypsy with her ash-black hair,
Looked flawless every day
With another on the way;
Above all, she was kind.
"Her I married within a month," he told me.
"Didn't want to wait too long
And change my mind.
Again."
But there's no feeling quite as high as that first love, he said as we pulled up to a red light.
Cars crawled like ants into the intersection
With men and women and children
Behind the wheel,
Killing time and thinking
And talking and smoking and drinking.
I wondered if any of them were also remembering their teenage girlfriends.

"What about you? Have you ever been in love?
And I mean like, real, crazy,
Pull-your-hair-out love?"
As he said this, his eyes flashed
Like this love thing was the greatest ever.
I could have said "Oh, don't I know it!"
I could have told him about
The Italian pizza I bought us for takeout.
I could have said, "Funny you ask,"
And told him about the books we planned to read
And the frozen yogurt
And the stolen bikes
And, of course, his grandfather's spoon.
I could have shown him my worn-out eyes
And remembered that morning I was sleepy but happy
After a long and perfect night.
I could have said, "Don't get me started!"
And told him about the day that we parted
And the strangely rectangular shape of his head
During all those horrible things that were said
Instead of a proper goodbye.
I could have chuckled and sighed.

"Have you ever been in love?"
"No," I lied.
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Whoever thought of chicken soup obviously never had Bailey's

Because, let's be honest, the soup kinda tastes like oil and shoelaces. Bailey's, on the other hand, tastes like chocolate wrapped in sunshine. The taste of alcohol is almost unnoticeable, but the mixture still has that dazed-dizzy-but-completely-relaxed effect on the body and the mind.

The reason I bring this up is that I'm having a hard time dealing with what happened. I want to think about all of it at once and never remember it again at the same time. To avoid falling into a mopyteenagercoma when I'm left to myself, I do what I do best - draw, write, paint, sing, play, make, bake, whatever - but all of that somehow seems to relate back to the brooding thoughts that pound at the back of my mind where I left them to rot and fester. So I decided there's no use fighting them anymore. But there is a healthy way of letting them seep out on their own, and that's why I'm creating a special segment in my blog that will hopefully let me express everything I want implicitly. It's a collection of poems, paintings, and short stories, some by me and some by people who've had similar experiences. I'm hoping to recreate that feeling left by Bailey's that is so carefree and intoxicating, you'd swear you just jogged off five pounds of cellulite and are now having your celebratory cake.

As a side note: it's difficult to publish stuff that's very personal. The reason I created the blog is because I wanted people to hear what I had to say, but there are many things I write every day that will never be seen by anybody else. I could just as easily have kept these poems and stories private, but I think it'll be easier for me to get over if I'm not the only one looking at them. Maybe if I allow it to fester out there rather than in here, under the judgmental condescending eyes of people who probably don't relate and will likely misunderstand, I won't feel confined to my own contemplations. Or maybe I'll find people that do relate, and help them out as well.

Here is something to start things off (and also because it's 11:46 in the night before my morning english lit exam). Who needs poultry? I'll take a shot of the Irish Creme.

Chalk by Rebecca Ann Brown, 13

Love is like a piece of chalk
First it's brand new
Never been used
Then
With time
It fades away slowly
Until there is nothing left
But a small, tiny piece
That cannot be held anymore

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