Poems

Intro

Throughout high school, I was an avid, albeit novice, writer of poems. I didn’t share them with anyone–they were just my way of letting off some steam from the constant high school grind.

Nowadays, the college grind is so intense that I don’t have time to write them anymore. But I’m looking forward to the day I can once again dress in fluffy pajamas, light a scented candle, and ready a pen in hand to write more serious poems.

Here are two poems that I’m comfortable with sharing with the world. Here’s the disclaimer again that I’m really just a novice!

Unnamed

A sprawling beach
Thousands of feet kick up the sand
Hundreds of voices fill the air with laughter
Coming, going
Floating along the mundane river of human experience
Faces so easily forgettable
Just as easy as it is to forget that they are human
And it only takes one person
To light a fire in your soul
Indeed, everyone has someone
Whom they identify with home

This one I wrote with my dad in mind, while we were walking along Alki Beach in Seattle. I also submitted it with my undergrad application to Brown University, but I don’t think it was what got me in. Despite it being very meaningful to me, I still have yet to name it after 5 years!

Choco Pies

She said:
“I don’t like the taste of it”
Neither do I–
The dehydrated crumbs of choco pies
Or the oversaturated density of cosmic brownies
And airy foam of oily twinkies

The list could go on and on
Descriptions of snacks from long, long ago
List in the childhoods of millions
Who remember the flavor
That they now can’t savor
But are teary-eyed
As they realize
A new taste:

Is this what they call nostalgia
between my teeth?
Is this what they call memories
on my tongue?
A despicable sweetness sliding
down my throat
That’s so hard to stomach
As you relive the euphoria of long, long ago
Of a kid so carefree going with the flow
And, for a moment, you can forget the world
As you wallow in your memories
Devouring those timeless pies, brownies, and twinkies

This one I wrote soon after I ate a choco pie. But the funny thing is that I was introduced to choco pies late relative to my childhood and relatively close to the time that had inspired this poem in the first place.

In fact, I ate my first choco pie at 17/18 years old, and they don’t invoke any nostalgic memories. Neither do twinkies (I’ve never had one). But I often hear other people talk about these snacks so fondly, so poignantly, that I attempted to put myself in their shoes for once.