Love Notes & Lamentations

Did you ever pass notes back in the day? You know, the stuff speedily scrawled in class and handed off to each other in the hallway or the ones you stealthily scribbled and passed while the teacher wasn't looking? How about writing heart broken poems of love lost, life wasting away, and how The Man wasn't going to bring you down? Oh you didn't do that? I SO did. A lot of creative types, like myself, often had a dramatic "woe is me" experience going through school. We'd drone on about how much life sucked and how all love was ill fated. For me, I kept my emotional rants to myself, for the most part. Most of my family and friends had no idea that I was so mentally dark and dreary. I think I was Emo before it was even called Emo, except I didn't have the asymmetrical haircut and skinny jeans. Wait. Does that make me old? Ah crap. Oh well!

I was thinking about all those old school notes and over-emotional poems today, so I went digging around the house trying find them. The notes, I found right away because I had decided, when I was still in high school, that they be amusing some day, so I threw nearly every note since grade school into the same box. I even numbered them by grade, so I'd know when they were written. I'm embarrassed to admit that actually. No, really I'm kinda wishing I was that organized now, but that's besides the point. Looking in the dusty old box, I was afraid to open and read any because almost all of them had been folded in some crazy origami fashion. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fold them back again. I eventually opted for one that was sans the fancy folding. The "5" on the outside tell me it was from 5th grade.

"How's school? its nice. Only because i'm going out with you. Do you still love me? I still love you. I'm not sure if we will kiss but I want to hold hands. Here comes Mrs Casey, By. Love David."

Ah young love.

The poems took some digging in the attic, but I eventually found those too. After reading a few, I can safely say that I may have been a good song writer for a goth metal band. Who knew? I guess I missed my calling. Key phrases include: Blowing out the burning embers of your joyous soul (If the soul was joyous, then why was it burning?), Overwhelmed by the stinging pain (Like bee stings? Because bee stings can be overwhelming.), Emotions swirling inside of me (This phrase or a version of it appears regularly). There seems to be a lot of writing about yearning and aching, crying and emptiness, being taken for granted and feeling out of control. Typical Emo crap I'm sure, and funny now, though definitely not when I was 17.

"Stuck" Dated 07/18/99

"Why is there this longing desire to leave, when there's no place to go? No house to call home. Back and forth. In and out. Unable to stop, and rest in permanent habitation.
Alienated and alone. Wandering aimlessly. Searching for a place to connect, a piece of the puzzle.
Obstacles like mountains, weighing down the aspirations, with the ignored morsels, of reality. Checked into a mental institution, where atleast no one has to care.
Creating a world of illusions, leads to the softening of the brain. Wanna be naked in the snow, and frostbite makes so much sense. Risking health, in spite of it all, to break the chains."

It's so bizarre reading this stuff now. It kind of blows my mind how dark and dreary I really was.

I'm thinking about making these lovely old notes and poems a weekly feature, and I'd love, love, love to include submissions from readers. If you have old note, letter, poem, etc let me know and I'd love to feature it here on the blog.