10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Fifty-Four)

Sunday poetry written just for you. For Sundays. To be read with a sundae in hand.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 54

Poem 1:
He got the car.
Jobless in my parent’s house, back again.
Newly minted, carded, brother
Has the car keys.
I, who invade the space,
That should rightfully be the next king’s.
Leecher, me, wants the way to get out.
But I’m not drivable.

Poem 2:
I switched to a new school
Where I’d been, you found the popular one
Made friends with her,
And golden to fly.
But this one had girls with makeup
Who thought I was odd,
And odd meant unsure.
Couldn’t be unsure.
So I made friends with the girls,
Who put up with me,
Hoping I’d find someone new.

Poem 3:
I never got any adventures
Everything went by a book
Never found me
With a ‘don’t ask’ chicken or wheelbarrow
And I didn’t know how to look.
I was always too smart to go to
Those parties.
Here’s to wishing I was stupider.
Self-pity over that one thing I don’t have.
If I got it, it’d come with something new
Some new, I wish I hadn’t.

Poem 4:
She left for high school
Three years of friends who matched shirt colors
I said, don’t change
Don’t start cussing
She said I won’t.
And we saw each other one more time
She looked, like, was different.

Poem 5:
I find myself there again
Living for the new week of the show
Saying if I get through this set of days
I’ll have new characters to watch
And I’ve been waiting all summer.
Then when it comes on.
Finally.
I don’t watch it.
But say, I’ll see it next week.
When the new one comes out.
I’ll live for that.

Poem 6:
I’m cemented in
Cycled to say
I can’t start
Too late to start
Should’ve started sooner
Can’t start now
It’s all wrong.
I’m all wrong.

Poem 7:
Dad said, ok
In his pastor voice
The one he uses when making speeches
Or saying something grand
It’s the mode for all business
Filled with phrases I’ve heard before
And amens and all rights
But he speaks with it when
He talks to me on the phone.
The daughter, me, not
To be treated with rote perfunctory set rules.

Poem 8:
A girl wore a blue shirt with a deep v
She would pull over her chest so it made a u
I watched the boy I liked watch her.
So I bought brown v-necks
But when I pulled them down
There was nothing to go over
Stuck to my skinny hands.
By the time there was something there
I thought I was wrong for being so late
And had eaten my way through too many
Caterpillar lunches.

Poem 9:
I came into the room to work on a project for Mom
So I put on my music
Ray Charles, early, loud, call and response
He got angry in the next room
Muttered, here I was just sitting, it was all quiet.
She’s doing me the favor, honey.
But he had wrathed and stalked and stormed upstairs.
So I turned the sound off.
You can turn it back on, he won’t come back down.
He hadn’t said, please turn that down.
Only, I’m angry for what you’ve done.
And what I haven’t asked you to fix.

Poem 10:
I want him to like me
In that silly way
So that I can say,
Look someone likes me.
Means that I can like me
If someone else does
First.