poetry

Over There

My senior year of high school, I encountered an English teacher that revolutionized my love for poetry. Mr. Kline was not your average English teacher. He was ex army, solidly built, wore flannel and jeans, and dipped during class when he tried to quit smoking. He cussed and regularly told us the harsh realities of life. He never got his board certification because he wasn’t conventional and didn’t fit into the box. He had a passion for Shakespeare and we would spend weeks analyzing his writings and the beauty of how he articulated every word.

One day he decided he wanted us to begin writing poetry. We had spent a month analyzing poetry, some of his own, and deciphering language and meaning. He told us to pick a moment in our lives, a single moment, and write a paragraph about it. I had one moment that was fresh in my mind, my brothers second deployment. When he deployed the first time, we didn’t get to see him off because he was in New York. I was 14 at the time and was still really naive to what was happening. For the second deployment, he was a short six hour drive away and we went as a family to Ft. Bliss. I was 18 now and very aware of what a deployment meant. I knew that I could possibly be saying good bye to my big brother forever.

I wrote this all into a paragraph and turned it in. As he handed back our assignments, I didn’t get mine back. He stood in front of the class and asked if he could read my paragraph. I reluctantly shook my head yes and tried to keep from crying as he read it aloud. He choked up as he read and explained that he could feel my emotion through my words. His son had just enlisted and he too was feeling the fear of what deployment meant.

Mr. Kline helped me develop this poem. He suggested a song called Over There by Chris Gerolmo and said it would be perfect to work the lyrics into my poem. I’ve worked on this poem periodically over the last decade. Every time I thought of it, I’d pull it out and add to it or tweak it. Today I decided that I think it’s ready for sharing. I’m sure I’ll come back to it again, but for now, here it is.

Over There

The air was stifling as we stepped through the doors to the gymnasium

The day is coming

Drums are drumming

Holding my breath as if maybe plans would change if they saw everyone’s silent uneasiness

If you know one say a prayer

Masses of civilians with clear cut paths of tears running down their cheeks

There’s a Mother crying

Father’s sighing

Soldiers bury their heartache underneath battle ready war faces

War is in the air

An order is given to load up and the panic begins to set in

Trains filling up with boys

Who have left their favorite toys

Heart rates rise as we try to compose ourselves over goodbyes

They’re going over there

We embrace and whisper a prayer hoping it will not be the last time

Over there

Someone has to die

And hope begins to dissipate as the distance between us grows

It’s not our job to reason why

We drive home in silence, collectively pretending this is a short vacation and not a permanent death sentence.

Someone has to die

Over there

To My Babes with Love

In honor of our wedding day, I wanted to share the first poem I ever wrote for Anthony. I remember asking him to read something I wrote and at the end he said “wow, who’s that about?” I was very coy about it and eventually managed to get out “well it’s about you.” He was so flattered and taken aback because I don’t think anyone had done something like that before for him. He asked if I could print it out for him with a picture of us next to it so he could keep it in the semi truck. It stayed taped to his sun visor until he eventually came to live with me. I don’t think I’ve ever titled it because well, I’m not good with that part. But without further ado, my first poem to Anthony.

I’ll meet you there. Half way between reality and fantasy. That place where you made my body sing to yours. That gap of time where it seemed as if the only thing that matter was our bodies melted and our souls intertwined resulting in nebulous cluster of stars. The outline of our souls created a road map to an alter we have built to each other. A map I will blindly follow because the path is already carved out in my heart.

More Amateur Writing

Since I’ve been trying to put myself out there more, I figured I’d share another piece I started writing over a year ago. I’m not super thrilled with the beginning, but it’s a work in progress. Also, untitled. That’s one thing I struggle with is titles. But any who, without further ado, one of the first pieces I ever wrote about baby mama drama.

To the girl that kicked my man to the curb like a expired coupon she could no longer cash in:

Literally she could no longer cash in on him. The ATM read “insufficient funds” so instead of waiting for your investment to be returned, you closed your account and thought maybe you could receive a stimulus you didnt earn. Like maybe after the account was closed, you’re debit card might still work.

You are what I would noramlly call a lost soul, but I’ve had my experience with lost souls and you are not one of them. They are at least redeemable. If anything you are a originator of the emptiness to those in your life but you think you are the healer to bring the end to their pain so you squeeze harder and harder thinking you’re stopping the bleeding.

In reality you are suffocating them. Ok second thought let’s say you got burned by his blazing free spirit and there was a chance you could justify the wickedness that poured from your mouth. However, you seemed to like the sear your skin made against his fire because you’ve never felt genuine warmth before so you refused to pull away. You poked and prodded hoping to burn him down faster and you didn’t care if you went down in flames too. I would compare your mouth to gasoline but it’s more like a blow torch you’ve permanently ignited and you can’t quite figure out how to turn it off so you’ve go around setting people on fire because you think if they are turned to ash they’ll finally be at your eye line. Then you would no longer need to drag other’s to your level.