It’s Poetry Tuesday! We are going to go back through all my old notebooks and look at the god-awful poetry I wrote when I was an angsty teen and then you will get present day Michelle’s re-interpretation/headdesk horror-filled embarrassment.

Black

It’s all black,
It’s the color of my soul,
The world doesn’t understand my mind
Weirdo,
Freak,
Her,
IT,
No one will notice when I’m gone,
Where is that girl?
She died,
Oh,
I’m just a wrinkle that needs to be iron flat,
So, I’m checking out with two swipes and lots of blood,
No glory though,
There’s never glory for the invisible.

Oh, God, I cannot believe I laid the melodrama on so freaking thick! My poor mother. I am sorry. I am so sorry! This was probably one of the poems that my mother got a call from the school about. Oh, yes, the only reason my mother got phone calls from the school was because of angsty poetry. *cough*wellandthatonetimeIthreatenedakidinmiddleschoolbuthewasbeingadicksothatdoesn’tcount*cough* My mom told me about them as she received them. The school was worried because of my obsession with suicide, cutting, death, and abuse. I can only imagine they went something like this:

School Authority: Mrs. [my last name] this is [random school flunky with some authority] from [my very small public school].
Mom: Is Michelle okay?
SA: Well, we wanted to talk to you about a poem she turned in for a school assignment.
Mom: *headdesk*
SA: We are very concerned about Michelle, is everything okay at home?
Mom: *voice muffled by the stacks of work that is not being done because she has to handle her youngest being a melodramatic little shit* Everything is okay at home. Michelle is not suicidal, she read the poem to me. I asked her if she was okay and if she felt that way and she very cheerily told me she was fine, flounced off to her room and closed her door with her “This is my life! Let me be me!” sign on it.
SA: ….have you considered therapy?
Mom: Every damn day.

That is not how it went down of course, but, again, my poor mother got at least one of those calls and each time she already knew about the poem because I had shared it with her, very proud of my accomplishment.

The hilarious thing is that I was the only “goth” in our high school. The reason I put that in quotes is because even in high school I was putting quotes around it and calling myself a poseur goth because I didn’t really hate the world and I didn’t dress up in my bondage pants and mesh shirts every day, mostly just on Friday 13th just to creep people out. I loved putting on that black lipstick and the shock value that came with it. Straight-A Michelle running around in pants with chains hanging off them, playing at being apathetic and over everything, while being a Girl Scout, president of the French Club, president of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), member of Teen Institute and every anti-underage drinking group she could find, who helped run the anti-bullying annual program that was delivered every year to our middle school.

The cherry on top was apparently some people actually bought it.

At my junior prom I showed up in a bubblegum pink dress. We did pictures down at the lake first and I saw my APUSH teacher who called the principal to let her know that I was wearing pink. I swear to God I wore more than just black during school, but I guess not enough bubble gum pink.

I think what baffles me the most is, at a distance, I was not bullied that much or as extremely as a lot of people. I know that people were mean to me and made me cry, the most memorable being fifth grade when my group of female friends cornered me on the playground and said they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore, but I don’t recall anything particularly horrendous enough to really elicit some of the very dramatic poetry I wrote. But, as it is important to remember with adolescents, everything is the end of the world and the worst thing ever because they have nothing to compare it with in their life experiences. I was very lucky that I had a supportive family that was there for me through everything.