I went to a charter arts high school, and my English teacher was the state poet laureate, which meant that I had to sit in class and listen to some god-awful poetry about fitting in and acceptance. I loudly and repeatedly vowed that poetry was the worst thing to happen to the world and that I never wanted anything to do with bad poetry ever again.
(The hypocrisy can be found here, here, here, here and here, plus a few more in the archives if you feel like searching.)
My friend Mel and I were the only decent poets in that class. Even as self-depreciating as I am, I don't feel bad in writing that sentence, just by the sheer crappiness of the poems. I mean, they were bad. Forced rhymes and impossible meter, even just thinking about it makes me shudder. It was painful to sit through these classes.
Of course, this long introduction would be irrelevant if I hadn't gone through some of my old notebooks and found a poem that Mel and I wrote making fun of everyone in our class. We kept notes in the class of the most stupid lines we heard, just for this reason. Some of the lines (like the last one) are direct quotes from poems some of our classmates wrote. You'd be surprised at how hard it was to write this terribly. Unfortunately, we didn't have the balls at the time to read it in front of the class. But damn, were cool.
feelings
i think it's because i'm gay
that i feel so alone
or maybe it's because my dad beats me
when i'm on the telephone
or maybe cause i like to cut myself
to make the pain go away
or maybe cause i dress different
and get beat up every day
i wish i was marilyn manson
no one ever picks on him
his music speaks to my soul
i don't think that what he does is a sin
his words paint a pretty picture
of my deepest, dark despair
i believe every word he utters
onstage or ascending the stair
he has such pretty eyes
and he's smarter than Einstein
i wish i could dress the same
i wish his words were mine
i sit in class and stare at him
his curls fall from his ears
he doesn't know my life is dim
as i've loved him alone for ears
my self-worth is nothing
but the safety pin puncture in my left nostril
nothing will be as fucking painful
as this goddamn motherfucking poopface bitch cost will.
