my college friend, adam, is a talented and prolific poet-
who often shares his work on facebook for hungry art-lovers like
me to devour in one sitting. adam recently compiled
thirty-three great poems
into one place! (hooray!! ) here are three of my favorites:
WEIRD
When I was in
the second grade
some little blonde girl
in a blue dress
waked up to me
on the playground
and said
YOU'RE WEEEEEEIRD.
and I couldn't deny it
in my tie dyed socks
and dinosaur pants
and constant bad jokes
and I was okay with that
most of the time
but something still felt off
like I wanted to say
Look, I appreciate your
observation, but
you're a cookie cutter white girl
in a blue dress
and you
read books about horses
and I won't rail on you
for that
if you don't rail on me for
my neon Converse and
the fact
that I eat my hot dogs on a slice of bread.
But I didn't have the words.
Well, now I do.
And that same little boy
is writing
these weird poems and
cherishes the weird moments
when they go well
when people clap for them
when publishers print them
when they strike like lightning
when they devour like sharks
when they flow like warm rivers
of mustard on a hot dog
on a slice of bread
and nobody is looking at my socks.
GRANDMA JOYCE
My grandmother told me
that chemo made everything
taste like copper. I imagined
pennies erupting from her mouth
and wondered how many
would fit inside my own, but
never had the guts to try it.
When initially diagnosed,
my grandmother confessed
she didn’t really want to live
anymore anyway, and asked the
doctors if she could surrender.
Joyce, they said, this is a
highly treatable form of cancer.
You should consider yourself lucky.
Yeah, she said, I’m really lucky.
After the months
of automatic hospital doors,
phone calls from church ladies,
Jello cups, ice cream cups, the tearing
open of get-well cards, heart monitors,
you leave me the hell alones,
soap opera arguments, and
nurses telling jokes to light the room
my grandmother got her way
and that same optimistic doctor told us
it was over.
Hands pressed firmly on a window sill,
I watched as she flew up to heaven
in a solo plane trailed by a golden banner
that said
Never, ever tell me what to do...
COLLEGE
During my
first year of college
my head
exploded
all over
my childhood bedroom.
There were fragments
of skull
wedged
in between the pages
of my
old poetry books.
Blood stained
my pastel sheets.
My eyes,
now in different corners,
suddenly saw everything
a little bit
differently.
