Poems shmoems and butterfly wings

Hello!

We meet again, fateful reader. I would say faithful, but I think we both know that this is an on-again off-again relationship. Look, no judgments. We both have shit to do. We're both busy people. I get that, you get that. We're all good.

My mother and I were going through boxes in her basement to get stuff together for a yard sale on Saturday. Let me tell you, good reader, it was a blast from the past. It was like digging through my childhood. I found a poem that I wrote in elementary school. I would have saved it and shared it with you in it's unabridged form, but there were ziplock bags of butterfly wings in the papers and I freaked out and threw them in the trash. Allow me to offer you the abridged version that I remember:

I'm free, I'm free
I'm free, I'm unbound
I'm free, I'm free,
I'm free, I'm meaningless.

I read this poem to my mother. It was very difficult to read while laughing so hard. My mother giggled, and as I finished, her face flashed mild shock.
"God Kirstin, you were dark even then!"

It didn't help, I'm sure, that I was gesticulating wildly while I read. I'm free (throws arms wide), I'm free! (throws arms wide), well, you get the idea. Perhaps I wrote this about the beginning of summer? We will never know.

Look kids, this is what happens when you eat Gothios for breakfast and read books. You get all of your bad poetry out in elementary and middle school. It's important to get that out of your system. Write all the dark-black-void-of-my-heart poems you can so that you can move on. It is an integral time period in a developing poet's life.

And now for something completely different!

I'm one new poem down. It's killing me not to share it. Turns out, I really like doing that. Sharing. Hoping to have another one under my belt tonight. In fact, tonight is devoted to poetry, poetry, poetry. Hopefully my (horrible, no good, very bad) allergies agree with me.

Optimistic. I was reading an article that my former English Proff posted about how people drown and I suspect it may work it's way into a poem. Drowning is really creepy, you guys. One of the most depressing writer-suicides (in my opinion, and excepting Sylvia Plath, who obviously wins every depressing award of all time), was Virginia Woolf's. Rocks, pockets, into the River Ouse. Peace-out.

It's quiet. That's what the article said. From an observer's perspective, there isn't thrashing around or screaming, you just bob in the water until you can't hold yourself up anymore, or you don't get enough gasps of air, and then you drown. Quietly. Maybe you scream into the water. You are trying so hard just to get your head to the surface, to gasp for air, that you don't have the time or energy to holler for help. I wonder if your mind is quiet during this struggle, or if it's deafened with noise, if you hear your heartbeat like a scream. And then there's this.

At some point during your childhood or adolescence, somebody has asked you this question:

Would you rather die by fire, ice, or water?

If they haven't, allow me to ask you... would you rather die by fire, ice, or water? My response, without hesitation, has always been ice. I like the idea of falling asleep. The idea of my flesh melting from my semi conscious body, or the futile, quiet underwater struggle doesn't appeal to me. I have since learned that the smoke will, most likely, asphyxiate you before you die by fire. Maybe I'll amend my answer, at some point.

Also, just in the off chance that my parents are reading this (hi, mom!) this is just morbid, idle speculation. I have no intention of dying by fire, ice, or water. I am immortal. I have inside me blood of kings. If I die, remember, it's because there can be only one. I give my power to Adrian Paul in the form of sweet, sweet lightning.

xoxo,
K