Poetry for Other People

I've written poetry since I was probably around 13; teenage angst drives a lot of us there. Lots of them were in the style of ee cummings back then and I really identified with his rebellious rare use of capital letters & punctuation. I hope I've improved since then, although old ee creeps in there now and then still. :)

My poems nowadays tend to be about (or rather, I try for them to be about) things other than my concerns at 13. But obviously in all that time, I've written a few poems inspired by men other than my husband. A few of them have been published in small college chapbooks. Those are pretty good, actually, and the sentiment behind them is way gone, although the poem helps me remember something about that moment. Mostly it helps me remember the pain, since back then my poetry was mostly about betrayal and sadness (thanks a lot evil ex). At least he was good for something.

In preparing the nursery for the babies, I've had to CLEAN THE GUEST ROOM CLOSET out. ::cue ominous screeching violin music:: If you've ever had a guest room closet, you probably know what ends up in there. A huge pile of things that you at one time didn't think should be thrown out, but didn't really need daily: old snorkels and fins from that trip to Hawaii, a string of decorative lights for St. Patrick's Day-- green shamrocks over white blinky Christmas lights. An old scarf for skiing (really ugly... but sort of soft). Lots of old uniforms from Andrew's days in the Navy-- a few formal dresses I doubt I'll ever fit into again. Some Halloween costumes. My yellowing wedding dress (which wasn't "preserved" and spent two years in my mom's closet, so is a bit nicotine stained and probably irreparable. I don't care; it goes in a box in the attic now. That's not going in the trash, even if there's no chance anyone will ever want to wear it again.)

Buried at the bottom of the closet, there was this box of old videotapes-- bootleg recordings of movies that I don't particularly know why we recorded them. I don't think any of them were porn, although a few don't have titles on them so you never know-- they might be left over from Andrew's single days. The rest, with some of the titles written in my handwriting so I must have recorded them, are not particularly good movies, actually. But man, we've got a nice VCR recording of them in case we ever want to watch it again! (Those, incidentally, are going to visit Mr. Trashman).

But in that box was this book, a journal that Andrew was given by his ex girlfriend back way before we met. Waaaaay. When I was just out of high school, and still writing sad poetry about painful hurtful things.

There are about four short prose-like poems written by my boy in there. (He's a good, if unstructured poet, although he doesn't do it very often. My dreamer boy). There are very good elements to a couple of these short poems. They were written way before he met me, so there's absolutely no reason why I should be jealous.

But of course you know I am. Jealous that is. A little. I tell myself it's unreasonable, and silly, and all those grown-up things that one should tell oneself about your lover's past. But there's also a childish part of me kicking, yelling, pounding on the floor and screaming "NO!!! MINE!!!!!!"

I know that my poems to ex-lovers do not mean anything anymore to me, that those emotions are so far gone as to be as ancient as an old skeleton of a tiny animal-- a mouse, perhaps-- caught in the corner, gone to dust in parts, brittle white bone with a bit of old sinew and a little dried hair. Smiling bone lips. Dead, gone, just an archeological record of something that was once alive, but is small and empty now.

But. But. But. MINE!

I can be the distant poet, holding on to old poems and knowing that they mean nothing. I've read his poems before, in fact, way back when we first met. They impressed me then; I'd never dated a guy who was a poet before that. But for some reason, those poems for another woman written by my boy bug me. Even though I don't want them to. Even though I want to be a grown-up about it. (Maybe it's because he hardly ever writes poems, and I am more jealous of her ability to get him to write for her? Incidentally, he swears that they aren't about her, but about a "dream woman." Implying of course that I'm that dream woman, with a kiss and a smile. Cause he's a wise man.)

I place the small brown leather book on the "keep" pile. Most of the pages are empty, dusty, smelling of those little silverfish that eat the glue out of book bindings. He wouldn't notice, most likely, if it ended up in the box of useless videotapes out at the curb. He'll probably take my word for what is junk & what he would need to sort through. I suppose that small kicking screaming part of me wants him to voluntarily throw that book out, but then, the poet, the one who sees the beauty in those few small lines written over 13 years ago and never really even looked at by him again wants them to be saved.

I guess really what part of me wants is poems written for me, to replace those written for a woman who he has a shared history with, but who is gone from his life forever* now. But I guess there are other real, living poems that I have, that won't be stuck in a box in a guest room closet. Ever.

So get over it spoiled rotten inner brat.

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*And I never really had a grudge against this woman from his past until years later, when she reappeared briefly, using an illness as an excuse to look up my hubby, and then tried to weasel her way back into his life. His short and sweet "goodbye" was enough to save him a world of shit, but her, well, she doesn't get a pass anymore.