The first time I got into writing poems was during a Zoom meeting when I was thirteen. I was working on an assignment for a summer prep program then. My first poem assignment in a while. But this time, it was different. I had something to write about and was even more prompted to write about it withe the word bank we were given to use. I named it Thursday, June 24:
Precisely cut coral-orange cantaloupes
Are set on the table
In a silver bowl.
And shortly afterwards, the door slams as a man leaves.
And the neighbor’s dog barks as always.
At 1, the meeting
With half of the people in cellular gray compartments of names and pictures.
In the background, repeated music from a phone somewhere.
And the last two outlier words:
Bananas, Castaways.
It had been a year (or perhaps two; I can’t remember) since I last spoke with my father. Later that summer, after I had finished that prep, my family and I went to the Rocking Horse Ranch in Highland, NY, for vacation. There, again, a poem sprouted in my mind. Without pen and paper, I could only repeat it countless times in my head. Again and again, the words crossed my lips until I finally engraved them in my head. I gave it quite a cliche name, but it was the only thing I could think of at the time: Journey. A refreshing, new expedition of sorts from a “once-dark tunnel mouth.” I really did relish “the new scene” with its “dancing clouds of glee,” vegetation that went by “Slow and unceasing.” At that time, my other thoughts had almost disappeared, “Like they’ve never existed.” But then, of course, I can never escape. The trip quickly passed because, as they say, ‘time flies when you’re having fun.’ And then I recall writing about my sleepless nights when I “struggle[d desperately]for air, / … chok[ing] on my tear” as guilt “from years / Ago / … strangl[ed] my throat.” At times, I wouldn’t even think about it, but it is not something that I, at that time and still, could easily forget. Naturally, I named the poem Struggle. I know—generic but self-explanatory, right?
—
When you’re on the receiving end of Care, it must feel pretty good, right? That sort of “Gentle grace / Enveloping you in warmth.” However, care, to me, is “Self-proclaimed, / A double-edged sword” at best. Because “Just as well as it can heal / It can harm.” Every time someone cares for me, I can’t help but feel burdened. How do I pay them back for their goodwill? What if I let them down? Do I deserve this? And just like that, things start to become Too Much. The brightness of a computer screen, the throbbing of a headache, “their thoughts / Weighing down” heavily, much “Like the overwhelming rain, / … too much / For the sewers / To drain.” Like my tears that can’t stop falling no matter how much I try to hold it back, to calm down, to swallow it up, and to forget it all.
—
Let me begin with this: “Humans are prideful creatures.” I don’t think anyone is an exception. At least, not the people in my life. And it is to the point where people hide from the truth to defend their Pride, unwilling to acknowledge their faults. They will sleep, leave the house, and go on and on about some else’s imperfections. Thus, they are cowards. Yes, abandoning Pride would probably make people look like “Brave fools.” But people who continue to be over-Prideful will fall into destruction and regret.
—
I have often felt like I wasn’t in my body. As if I was looking at myself like I would normally look at someone else. As if life isn’t real but rather an illusion in which I am fake, nonexistent. I remember that one time—but not the first time—that I was being criticized for doing something that, in their eyes, was completely unnecessary. Now, don’t get me wrong here, but I, too, believed that what I was doing wasn’t needed at all. But I couldn’t stop. I just can’t. (Will this misery last forever? Would I never find a way out of it?) And I would just stand there, back to that person, taking in their anger and insults, motionless as a bronze statue. I could only laugh in my head when they said that I needed a psychologist because what can I say? They weren’t wrong. It wasn’t until they fell asleep that I moved out of the room to the bathroom. The reflection I saw then in the mirror was a sight I had seen countless times. Sometimes in the dim light and sometimes in complete darkness. (And there was nothing left but darkness.) I stayed in the bathroom for a few minutes before stepping out into the living room to stand before my chair. There, I stood for another of “what seems like endless / Seconds, / Minutes, / Hours, / Of waiting. / Hesitating.” For what reason I don’t know, but I remember listening to the other person sleep, “Easily. / Too easily. / Snoring.” Feeling drained enough, I finally sat down on my chair and wrote this poem: Dead and Living. Because I am alive. And dead. And the next day I wonder if I really did experience what I did the previous night. Because how can they just laugh the next day all carefree as if nothing ever happened the night before? Am I the one who got it all wrong?
—
I remember in class one day, we were to write an ode specifically to an object in the room. I chose the windows but ended up writing about multiple things. I roughly started an unfinished draft in class but rewrote the whole thing at home. And being the great title maker that I am, I named it Ode to the Windows:
To you who
Separates
Two
worlds.
Within your embrace,
The tiled floor beneath
That carries the
Twisted,
Bent
Wires and the
Weight
Of one world.
The plain walls
Heavy
With decor.
The contrasting blackboard powdered
With erased existence.
And outside
Of this world that you shield from
Is another world.
With white
Puffs
For clouds.
So incredibly
Bright.
My life feels no different from the windows shielding this other, brighter world and surrounding this heavy, twisted, and erased—something.
—
Most of my thoughts seem to be a “broken string”—fragmented, Miscellaneous.
Sometimes I don’t even exist. And my thoughts? Just “Remnants of no more.” And other times they “Strew across bitterly,” easily ripping me of life. But maybe it’s bittersweet. Because maybe I want this. (Although, I must say, I terribly despise sweet things).
—
Some things I have Yet To Follow. I “see nothing but / Blurs” (which can be taken quite literally since I wear glasses). My ideas, nothing but a draft, a mess. When I try to find the problem (and maybe deep down, I already know the truth), I quickly deny it, hide away from it. Eyes covered, I really did not (and still don’t) know what is at the end of this “blind search” that seems as “clear as braille.” However, what I did know, then and now, is this: the point is not that the world is cruel because the world is cruel to everyone, whether equally or unequally, fairly or unfairly. Many people have it worse than me. A lot worse than me. The problem is me. And what do you do with a problem? You get rid of it. All of it.
—
I was riding in a car one day, talking to my sister about my poems and how I should start bringing something to write with in case I ever get inspired. Then, I remembered a poem I wanted to write from a previous car ride. I titled it Borrowed:
The tops of trees were akin to bushes—
And we—they—were just ants
Crawling along.
Where the sky and sea met
Was an almost indiscernible horizon line
Perhaps it wasn’t
There
Perhaps it was
An illusion.
Just
emptiness.
Like us.
(I should be thinking about future joys, the ones where people grow drowsy in that intoxication without even worrying about the horizon one cannot see. But, for me, the future is a dark corridor, with the door at its end firmly closed.)
I named it that partly because I finished it on my sister’s phone, which I borrowed, and, most importantly, because I borrowed the emotion. The ‘us’ reminded me of a pair of lovers, but then again, I wouldn’t know that feeling. Thus, borrowed. And from me, this “just ants / Crawling along[,] … illusion[,] … [and, of course,] emptiness.”
—
I guess the best way to sum it up would be a poem that many should recognize. Almost everyone should have written this poem at least once in their lives in English class before starting the poetry unit. The iconic Where I’m From poem. And in its purest form, here:
I am from the cicada sounds of the summer morning,
and the croak of frogs in the night.
From the blooming chrysanthemum,
the towering forest of bamboo,
and the higanbana swaying in the wind,
forming waves in a sea of red.
I am from if-I-don’t-see-them-they-don’t-see-me
and just leave me be,
please.
From wanting to do things but
can’t,
it’s too late,
I’m too afraid of something—
Some things.
I am from a past that has already passed,
from a time that passes too fast.
And I hope I will last
until
the end.
After:
In the end, it exploded. I had been provoking myself to the point of pain and seeking every opportunity to do so. And yet I had to keep smiling, hear myself say again and again that I was happy, pretend to be happy, let everyone believe it! Because it was the thing to do. What’s the matter with you? I thought you were so happy! Oh, yes, I seem to be, because when I’m with other people, I’m able to hide my face behind a mask. Without me even realizing, I was losing something. Losing them continuously as my life went on, like a traveler who leaves some part of his wealth at every inn along his road. And I had passed like a shadow. I was compromising myself, slowly being consumed. An inner detachment where everything was a lie. What was making me so unhappy? Isn’t I myself the obstacle to all happiness, the cause of all misery? But when I say that, they just wouldn’t understand. And my fear of not finding the proper words sealed my lips. What’s more, I lacked the words, the occasion, the courage. So why not put an end to it all? What was (is) holding me back? I would like to escape from life, but certain places on earth must produce happiness and other places must produce the opposite. Just like a plant that was peculiar to a soil and grew poorly in any other spot.