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Mili1.
it took me six years, one promise{dream},
three secrets
and four little words dropped like a bomb
for me to realize that Mili Shukla
was not special.

2.
mili has this way of entering into your life
out of nowhere, like a Tennessean storm,
and disappearing like the last minute of a sunset.

in sixth grade, Mili was the first one to decide
she was old enough to cuss. I always made fun of her for
being short, but now I think she grew up more than all of us.

mili doesn't eat a lot, but she swears she knows she's thin.
she also swears she knows she's loved, but once
she spent an entire lunch crying in the bathroom.

when Mili real
CameronCameron Bergeron stands tall, but I'm not sure it's
Because of pride, or just
Because he's already 6"2
With only up to go.

His hair is in a constant state of
Too-long-for-dress-code
And his face is in a constant
I know something you don't.

I know mathematical formulas that will make your head spin.
Just kidding, I don't but I could probably
Convince you I did.
I can ace tests without studying,
Argue the beginning of the universe,
And never turn in homework, but still get A's.

I'm out of the loop, he tells me with a frown.
I want to tell him that he's so lucky to be out of the loop.
Because inside, it's always hatemehateyoulo
Grace W.She stays on the Internet until
Her dad comes yelling at her to get off the damn thing
And go downstairs.
But going downstairs implies going to bed and
Going to bed means falling asleep,
And she's never really done that well.

She can't.
Fall asleep, I mean.

She lies in bed and plays games
Like counting backwards from one hundred
And counting Sheep, but the Sheep always turn into
Failed Test, Failed Friend,
Failed Life.
But the worst is the ransom game she plays,
Where she's been kidnapped and her parents don't pay the ransom.
But some nights they do, and then decide she's not worth it
And try to get a refund.

She keeps tryin
CaitlynIt's the little things I know about Caitlyn Cameron.
She never tells anyone the big things.

Once, Caitlyn Cameron broke in front of me.
She leaned against the dirty bathroom stall
And clutched herself, like it was all that held her
Together.
"My sister cut herself last night."
And the one time Caitlyn Cameron trusted someone
Enough to see her break
That someone could not help her.

Sometimes when it rains,
Caitlyn Cameron will stand out in the water
And ask God why she wasn't good enough.
She says it feels good to blame someone for her cut-off angel wings.
She can still feel them desperately trying to take her some place better.
LindseyIf I only know one thing about Lindsey
It's that she has broken
Far too many times to count.

Oh, and that she doesn't deserve
What her friends say about her.

For two years, Lindsey dated Matthew
And thought it was love.
Only Matthew knew it was guilt
And the inability to say no.

They say she had the perfect wedding planned
Out in her head and thought she had finally
Found her perfect prince.
They hated her for being happy.

But Lindsey is not based on her past
Relationships, and she is not defined by the boy
She's left hanging
Because she's still waiting
For the boy who left her.

Lindsey is defined by the color of her eyes
Ady{sen}Seven year old Adysen Reader
Took her mother's most fancy wine glass
And filled it with apple juice,
All the while telling me that one day,
She'd really be able to taste the stars.

"You know," she tells me, "You could jump from the
Empire State building and survive."
I tell her she's wrong, and that you'll die.
"No, no," she insists, "it's not the jump that kills you- it's the ground-
The sky just hugs you and wishes he didn't have to let go."

Ady's been able to draw since she was four,
But she hasn't been an artist till she was nine, and
Manned up enough to tell me that she really didn't
Believe in dragons, but she hopes we can
Daniellei am sorry this took so long
to write. i think i have been too focused on
reality and how the universe is big and Danielle is so small
that i forgot that Danielle thinks the universe
will never be too big.

she grabs my hand and drags me down the hallway:
"c'mon, Grace- skip!
if you think too much, your life will stick like that!"

no one can be that happy all the time,
so i think a lot of the time it's fake
and i think a lot of the time she just wants to stop.
but she doesn't, and she does it on purpose.
because-

Danielle tells me, "your hair looks
heavy metal, today" because she knows i think
people lie when they say things li
JonahJonah's eyes are as blue as the ocean
He almost never went to
And the sky he almost never saw.
But that's putting it too poetically, I guess.
His eyes are blue, just like mine.
His skin is white and Belgian
And he probably still has a scar on his chest
From a surgery his two-years-older brother can't
Remember him having.

Jonah comes to school every Monday with
A new skinned knee or scabbed arm.
And if he's that bad at longboarding,
I tell him, he should just quit.
He just laughs.

Jonah has stolen my journal to read my poems
More times than I can count.
I just hope he's found them interesting, because
There's something about
Allieat the age of one, allie martin
was diagnosed with leukemia.
by three, her parents were carrying around a hairless baby,
and dreading each x they marked the calendar with.

but this is not a cancer story,
because by the age of four, she was cured
and she doesn't know why,
but she doesn't concern herself with the why.

allie martin is the best cheerleader i know,
just because she seems so happy to be up there
trying to make everyone else happy.
see, when she was in the hospital, her parents said,
she was the happiest patient there.

"alison martin?"
"it's allie, and i am here."
if there is one thing i cannot say about allie,
it is
ChaseFor the third grade talent show,
Chase Tidwell dressed up as a cowboy
And preformed "YMCA" with an Indian,
Construction worker, cop, and a soldier.

In first grade, his biggest accomplishment
Was that his initials spelt out the word, "CAT",
And for the first couple of years I cannot remember a time
When I didn't have to tell my friends,
"Yes, our names rhyme. No, we're not soul mates."
He was also the first person in my grade
Who learned how to say, "Hello, my name is Chase," in Spanish.

Hola, me llamo Chase. Hola, me llamo Chase. Hola, me llamo Chase

Nine years have passed,
And not much has changed.
Chase became taller, his brai
DanielIf it wasn't for Daniel Calhoun
I would have gotten that part in the
Middle School Fall Play when I was
in eighth grade.

But Daniel's someone you forgive easily,
Just because he's Daniel and I've known the boy for nine years,
And anyway, Daniel kind of comes with a get-off free gene.

He also seems to have come with a blush-easily gene,
Because his face is tomato-red half the school day.
I guess that's okay too, because it's
Kind of funny.
Some find it annoying how he can't stop laughing at times,
But I can't help but find it hopeful- like his open,
Laughing mouth, squinty eyes and bright red blush
Paints a picture with the capt
Matthew M.Matthew Minor married Tim McGraw's daughter
When he was in preschool,
And only in Music City.

He's all sharp angles, curly hair,
And geography bowls he won in fourth grade.
He's holding onto things and letting her go,
Brought up on family politics and Southern beliefs.

Our second grade Spanish teacher
Filmed Matthew's laugh and put it on Youtube.

He's seventeen missed calls and
Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana
My home sweet home.

Matthew got all the solos in elementary school
And loves songs and musicals no one else
Has ever heard.

He didn't really want Mrs. Fortner to video his laugh,
So for ten minutes of trying, al
Xavixavi prances around with nine year old gold
stars on his shirt and tells other people they're
messed up.

his friend asked him the question,
"if she and me were dangling over a fire, who would you save?"
he asked us what we wanted to do after school.
his friend said soldier, i said poet.
xavi said he'd save me
because words are more important than guns.

just kidding, he hates me.
but Xavi's the kind of person who
i think would say that.

he's Spanish and an atheist and English and freaky
and crazy and American,
but I'm starting to think Xavi's tired of labels.

i tell him I'm sick of being called
emo,
and he says, "I know."
JeffreyJeffrey Williams is homophobic.
But I cannot hate him for his beliefs, like
He cannot hate me for mine,
Though I know there are some days we both want to.

But there's other reasons to hate the boy-
Hate him because once a long, long time ago
I thought I loved him.
But then we both grew up into
Real-world terms and opinions that were
Never made to fit.

So, some days I think I'm just making up for lost time.

There's this part of me that thinks he deserves
A 'Bad Poem'
Because he called me ugly all through sixth grade,
Insults my friends ("I'd like him, really Grace, I would,
But he's just so... gay.")
And expects himself to be a
SamanthaSamantha McCaleb ends almost every text
With a smiley face and if she keeps
Over-using it, I tell her, it will eventually
Lose meaning. She looks up from her phone, smiles and says,
"Doesn't everything?"

She's a book lender, an emotion-eater,
And the kind of security blanket
That thinks it's ratty and tattered, but really is
The best protection from the words
That like to attack the back.

Samantha says it's stupid to expect instant fame,
And I guess it is, but I know it hurts when
She sings to her camera late at night,
Each note sounding like a hope she thinks she
Doesn't deserve. Her words are written from
The heart she tries
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More from ~MisfitableGrae

Hallelujahthere is an angel sitting next to me.
her hands are tucked like wings against each other,
each blue life-vein peeking out through
too-white, too-thin skin.
a dog-earred copy of The Great Gatsby
waits in the pocket of the seat in front of her.
any other day, that might be a metaphor,
but today it is just a lonely book
whose owner is even lonelier.

there is an angel in the plane seat next to me.
while i am closing my eyes to say goodbye to the ground,
she is opening hers wider to say hello to the sky.
her spine is bending against the metal side,
like maybe if she pushed enough she could be free.

as the plane starts moving faster and faster,
a graduated game of hide-and-seek“I Need You To Tell Me Everything You Can Remember,” he says.
i close my eyes so i can’t see nothing i don’t want to—like
the red blue white lights on the cars—
and think back years and minutes and hours.

the playground is overrun by jungles and pirate ships.
a battlefield of skinned elbows and dirt faces and,
“mommy, can’t i please stay a few more minutes?
we’re about to defeat the dread captain Roberts!”

we’re peeking out of our boats into the ocean.
it is summer. we may never go back to school again.
we are pirates, we are astronauts,
we are sky-big.
our sunday clothes are
a town i don't want to call mineon the right of the turquoise green sign
that welcomes you to columbia,
there are two gas stations and a church.
on the left side, there’s a morgue.

when i was five years old, my father pulled over
and stopped on the side of the road while black car
after black car passed us, going the other way.
“did we know them?” i asked.
“no,” he said, putting the car in drive. “but someone did.”

at seven, mr. jimmy down at the ice cream shop
let me have free samples of all the new flavors he made
before he put them out to the public.
a favor, he called it, for his little henry.

(years later i would realize t
tear the skeleton from his comfortzonei want to build a skyscraper, seventeen stories high
and fill each floor with a story from the people who never said goodbye.

i.
a middle child, born in 1994,
she always wanted to be loved the most
until she learned how to give a blowjob
in an alley behind Miss China’s Takeaway
at knife point.

ii.
she lost her childhood
to an ocean who always thought it was small
and never stopped pushing its borders.

iii.
he’s not sure how he’s supposed to live without her.
staring at the closed coffin, he loses the ability to want to.

iv.
it’s not fair, she thinks,
that the house creaks when she’s trying to sleep,
but when
ily2i wrote a poem for you because
you make me believe in happily ever afters,
romantic suicides and the fact that one day
i might not break everything i touch.

i don’t know what i’m going to do in four years
because i can’t comprehend a life without you.
and i hate you for it.
you’re just so—

you adjust my skirt and give me a pair of jeans
and say, “don’t let society make you .”
you stay up late with me to watch the sun set
only to wake me up early to see it rise.

you guide me out of the way of
already-broken leaves and
piggy-back me straight into puddles and snowdrifts.
you steal pieces from
no wonder it took him 1455 pageswhen i was seven years old, a group of kids in my grade threw rocks at me for liking neopets more than webkinz. from then on, i was convinced i knew what hatred meant. but i don’t know how to describe it to the little girl who sits in the corner of my womb and in ten years might call me mommy and ask for help on dividing the world into black and white.

would i point to the churches with their bigotry? to the cotton fields of the south in the 1800s? to the classrooms of modern day america? would i tell her about how the jews stood in straight lines, waiting to die, with fear in their eyes and faith in their hearts? or would i try and de

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June 9, 2012
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Sydney Merrell

:iconmisfitablegrae:

The first thing I ever noticed about Sydney
Was that her last name was branded on my no-laces shoe.

The second was that she was the first person my age to smile at me.

That was when we were five
And played pirate on the run down playground
Where a splinter was a death wound.
I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.

When we were in first grade, she held a Barbie
Up to my nose, and told me,
"When I grow up, I'm going to be just like this."
Maybe I shouldn't have laughed.

I can't make it. You'll have to go on without me.
It was easier to go on without her than I originally thought.
Just ignore a few house calls, then a few texts,
Convince myself she just wanted to be
Just like me.
(If there is one thing I covet in this whole world
It is originality.)

But Sydney had never let things go easily-
Except maybe what made her a child.
By fifth grade, her walls were covered with girls modeling
And Gucci bags and five pairs of uggs lined her closet,
Stamping out the Barbie smiles.

In seventh grade, she became a cheerleader,
And for five minutes thought she was loved.
To this day I remember her face when she fell.

Sydney got us a session with the school guidance counselor.
When the woman told us that we needed to save a friendship like ours,
I told her,
Listen lady. There is not a single thing about this friendship I want to save.

Sydney's eyes are dead, and she smiles like she's worthless.
She sometimes puts her head down at lunch and cries.
I think she wants someone to tell her it'll be okay.
For her credit she hasn't stopped trying.
Her make-up mostly stays around her eyes
And she has eight pairs of Toms.
But I lost the authority to judge Sydney a long time ago.

For her birthday this year,
I got her a Barbie doll wrapped in movie star clothing
With a movie star smile.
On its left hand I wrote I'm and on its right sorry, like
A friendship necklace gathering dust-
Not worth anything but a keepsake because of the memories.

The next day, she gave me a ripped out piece of paper
On it was the journal entry we did in class.
At the top was the topic, written neatly in Sydney's handwriting-
Who is your hero? Who do you aspire to be when you are older?

I wonder what it must have felt like for this girl,
With everything and nothing in the world,
To have her hero break her, every day.

Sydney, I hope you know that
I am not a good hero;
Most days I cannot even save myself,
And maybe what we're doing these days.
Well, maybe that's your fault.
Maybe it's mine.
:iconmisfitablegrae:
People on Paper 6

It was me. I was her hero.

In all these poems I write where people get hurt, I am always the victim. Always. But I can be the villain sometimes.


P.S. I'm so sorry, Sydney.
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:iconkandykitten1994:
~kandykitten1994 Jun 11, 2012
This is a well written piece. The emotion is portrayed very well. I reel so sorry for the main character. I know how she feels.
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:iconammb96:
!Ammb96 Jun 10, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
I really like this. I love how the victim is someone people usually don't tend to see as a victim, it's also a very honest piece. It's really good.
Reply
:iconmissrexy:
~missRexy Jun 10, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
God... This is really touching!!
Reply
:iconjesus-mothic-freak:
!Jesus-mothic-freak Jun 9, 2012
wow.. :(
really sad and touching
did this happen for real?
Reply
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