Seventh grade, my friends left me

All I had to console me was family

A new Taylor Swift C.D.

The melody

 

School was tough with no seat

No one to meet

When it was time to eat,

I wanted to retreat

 

On and on it went like this

No social promise

I did my best, but I missed

having friends to laugh with

 

Then he came to school

Stood out amid the pool:

Short and pale among the cool

other kids who were cruel

 

He played viola, he was nerdy

I don’t want to get too wordy

He was frail, but felt sturdy

to me, I never heard he

 

Had a tough emotional past

I never asked

Together we had a blast

I had a friend at last!

 

It went this way

For two years without a stray

Best friends, needless to say

I never thought it would go away

 

Fast forward: we’re freshmen

New school, a new direction

And did I forget to mention?

I have a confession

 

Over summer, he grew tall

Voice dropped, I was enthralled

He wasn’t gorgeous, still small

Nonetheless, I took the fall

 

We sat together first hour

My love began to flower

But alas, it turned sour

Something stronger had a power

 

Over him

A depression that turned grim

It consumed him to the brim

I didn’t see it (at first); I loved him.

 

This is where the poetry started

I saw him, I felt lighthearted

I felt so lucky, it smarted

This feeling was so uncharted

 

I rewrote my favorite Swift songs

About him, after all, he “belonged

with me”, he had for so long

I ignored all of the wrongs

 

I saw. The distance he created

All of the time that I waited

To talk to him—I got frustrated

It was finally feeling ill-fated

 

He became rude, became sad

Hung out with friends who were bad

For him. I got dragged

Down trying to help, I couldn’t add

 

Any good to his life, though I tried

And I’ll admit that I pried  

But I just wanted to know why

He was slipping away, I died inside

 

Every time we’d talk

I tried to lock

My worries up until I was off

The ticking clock

 

And then I’d open up my laptop

A blank page as my backdrop

And my tears fell like raindrops

Then after the writing fit I would stop.

 

Take a look at my work

To the point, not a clever quirk

To be seen. Hardly artwork

But it took all of the guesswork

 

Out of how I felt. It was on the page

In the open, on the stage

Of my screen, a teenage

Heartbreak, sadness far from a rage

 

Clumsy words and poor rhyme

But those nights weren’t the time

To be precise; I had to climb

Out of the hole and the grime

 

And so line after line

Of how I thought he was mine

And what happened to our kind

Friendship until finally I resigned

 

And relented

He was no longer the person I lamented

Losing; He was quietly tormented

But the situation presented

 

Was one in which he had to aid

Himself. And so I made

My peace and paid

Him one more moment before I bade

 

Farewell. “My Final Letter”

I called it, and it was better

Than my other poems, unfettered

By the need to tether

 

My confusion to the verse

One last time I felt myself immersed

In the love I’d thought a curse

And very quietly, like a hearse

 

The last stanza rolled out:

 

“Finally, with a heavy heart

I wish you all the best

I’ll always love who you once were

I hope you can face the rest”

 

He never saw my poems; those

Were just for me. The prose

Though awkward, rose

Me from the throes 

 

Of a rather turbulent first love

That’s why I’m a poet. Of

Course it rarely fits like a glove

Words don’t float like a dove

 

Every time I put feelings to

A page, but what else is new?

They do what they need to do

Provide a release, a new view

 

Provide peace of mind

Allow me to unwind

The tangles of thoughts that I find

When life’s got me in a bind

 

So thank you words, for being there

Rhymes, for adding flair

And my first love, for making me aware   

That poetry’s in life...everywhere.