The Anti-Romance Poem Rant Thing!
This thing called love
it's a relatively and readily
confounding thing oh what
people stupid people would
give up for it what seas
ships would sail for it
what lives other lives
would ruin for it and yet love
remains this wonderful thing,
we see it in terms of sunsets
and secrets, staying warm by
the fire presents
strength and this quite abstract
but always solid notion
of forever. Yes, that is love
or at least what passes
off for it
in real time
in this world.
I.
My father always told me to
use my head, always the head
never the heart, because
you're always using the
heart anyway. The head you
have to remember to use,
I remember disagreeing with him
as a kid but what did I know,
he was a biologist and a lawyer
and I still threw straws in
the biodegradable trash cans
at school. So I listened to
him but I never really
heeded his advice all
the time. All I got was that
bad feeling everytime
I consciously knew that
I had forgotten to use
my head again.
II.
My mother recently told me
not mother to daughter
or woman to woman
but political science major
to political science major,
to find someone who understands you
and when she said understand
she did not mean the psychological
emotional philosophical
understanding which involves
a person knowing a person
heart to heart eye to eye
sould to fucking soul
she meant find someone
who understands you.
When you say that you think
Marx's idea of class struggle
is just another form of hegemony
and completely propagates
the systems of western subjectivity
which creates Spivak's subaltern,
and traps it in a state of
absolute control,
find someone who understands.
That. You. Never, she said
get an idiot my dear,
you're too pretty.
Yes mother, I said,
and inside I could feel
my heart agreeing
I am pretty. Too pretty.
Or maybe that was my head.
III.
When he left, it baffled me.
IV.
I was thinking that love
is very good over breakfast,
when you're staring at your
pancakes and you can hear him in
the kitchen, whoever he is. Some
imaginary guy, or girl, I guess
if you were a guy.
I was thinking that love is overrated
at dinner. I don't like the idea
of it coming at the end of the day
when you need it the least.
No you probably need love the
most at lunch, when you're all tired
from the morning and still
have an afternoon to face.
Yes, love is least likely to come
when you're stessed and sweaty
and not in the best of moods
but you need it the most then.
V.
One time a guy tried to court me
and I asked him if he thought
he could love me forever
and he said no. And I asked
then why bother trying
to love me now
and he said he didn't know
and I left him and that
was that and
I only felt the tears coming
months after. It was strange.
VI.
Hearts aren't made of ice but then
again I've been told that mine's made
out of that. It made me feel sad.
Do you know the only thing ice can
become? When it gets warmed enough
it turns into water. So I asked the
boy if he could warm my heart
and he said yes and I asked him what
happens when ice gets warm. It melts
he answered. Smart boy. What happens
when ice melts? It turns into water.
Can you hold onto water?
VII.
That night, I prayed the most sincere
yet illogical prayer I had ever prayed
"Lord I know I pretty much sucked
at Biology and I'm doing no stellar
job at chemistry right now but I know
that the heart is made out of cells
and shit and I know it's not water
though isn't our body made of blah blah
percent of water I'm not sure, but I
remember that percentage being
frighteningly large
and please Lord let my heart
be the small percentage
that's not ice...or water
or else no one's ever going to
be able to hold onto it.
VIII.
I feel like I've mentioned this
before.
When he left I was baffled.
A week later, I realized I
was hurt too.
IX.
I'm not cynical. No, not really
I've been in love before.
Did I always mean the true
never ending mature
kind? I'm not sure. It's different
every time.
X.
Not like there have actually
been many times.
XI.
This poem's getting a bit
too chronological for my taste
let's shake things up a bit. Is
this even a poem. Back in grade
school I had this very very huge
crush on a boy on a CD cover.
I don't think it was love
but back then that's what
I called it. I was in love and
it was so cute and all at once
pathetic. Though I didn't mind.
I find it admirable
that once upon a time
long ago when I was that small
I could feel something that big
that strong.
XII.
Love is too strong a word
so much so a lot of us are afraid
to touch it. When I was
a kid I threw it around carelessly.
I love you chocolate cake
I love you library book
I love you best friend
I love you random song on the radio.
I've learned better now.
I'm older. There is a quota.
Be careful who you give
your I love yous too.
XIII.
To be glad or to be sad?
That I never gave it to him.
Too late for anything now. Let's
choose to be glad.
XIV.
There was this one boy
I liked him for four years. Never
really loved, but really liked
and when I say liked you know
how they say for every girl
there will always be that one
summer, and that one boy
and well yeah he was it
summer boy karate boy
boy with the night sky in his
eyes and at times I was sick
in love with him but for four
years I really really liked him.
XV.
Recently I saw him. He's a senior
now I'm a junior and we're both
in college and I realized that
before we never really understood
eachother. No manner of words
could ever really explain
whatever needed to be explained
or maybe it's because neither
of us ever tried.
When I saw him our eyes met
and all at once those four
years were understood.
"Yeah, I get it"
So much then, for high school.
XVI.
So far I have alluded to
four boys in this pseudo-poem
slash rant slash time waster
call it what you like. They've
overlapped. They've replaced
eachother. Only one of
those boys have really left
that mark though, because I let
him and he left his mark
with a rather sharp knife
ouch ouch ouch I want
my mother.
XVII.
That boy was the one
that left. I guess. The one
these shortest parts
are about.
XVIII.
Now I'm eighteen and what a coincidence
this is the eighteenth part and I'd like
to give it to the eighteenth rose. And
he'll think it's so crappy because this
sucktastic poem-rant-Thing is not
really the most love flattering literary
composition in the world. Really I
could come up with fancier mushier ways,
but love isn't all that. It's real and messy
and often times neurotic. Or maybe not. Maybe
that's just me. But I'll say this.
Poor messy neurotic clumsy me loves this
boy and I suppose this is a fitting
way to end this little rant,
that even after all this and all that
he's still making me believe
Love can happen right.
And this is literally
probably the most bizarre or
tiring way you'll encounter
for someone to say what
will be said by the end
of this stanza, and if
I've annoyed you to no end
I apologize. Anyway you've
read this far so I guess
I'll come out with it.
I love you.
This stanza is for you.
Quite a climax killer isn't it?
-Patricia