Young self...try to take care of the Earth

That you feed off

And recycle…

For one day very soon

The Earth shall feed off of

And recycle...you!

Copyright © 1986-2017

Alan Salé

All Rights Reserved

contact: AASalehi@gmail.com

PoetryByAlan.com

Other children will steal your work if you let them.

Mr. Eastes at the candy store is a perve.

You will get old too so quit staring and thinking old people are aliens.

Cell phones are coming.

If you wear those tight pants on stage the zipper will hang open the whole time you're singing that song to the crowd.

Try to be okay,

And when you're not,

Try a bit harder.

(note: if all else fails,

stop trying altogether)

Hormones rage through your mind.

You want him to notice you.

You want him to like you.

You want to throw yourself at his feet,

Beg him to notice you,

Beg him to want you,

Beg him to be your Romeo.

You want him so badly,

You are blind to facts:

You don't need a Romeo.

Romeo strips away layers,

And I'm not talking clothes, honey.

He'll take things from you:

Rationality, focus, time...

You bleed your soul into one,

"The one", or so you thought.

He scrambles your emotions,

Like the breakfast you long for,

Awaiting you after a night of ecstasy.

You won't even get a night.

There are going to be sleepless nights.

Believe me, they will hurt.

All those boys you thought were men,

All those people you hoped would be

The Clyde to your Bonnie,

Though you didn't realize

Clyde was toxic and killed Bonnie.

Romeo's love stabbed Juliet.

The heart thinks it knows,

But you never know.

Take those emotions,

Not the ecstatic hormonal emotions,

But the heartbreak and the sadness,

The emptiness and the loneliness,

And that God awful confusion,

And lock it in a box.

Keep the key on your sleeve

And put your heart away.

Use that heart for blood,

Otherwise, you'll be burnt out, love.

Take them for face value, sweetie.

They are talking dildos

Just as you are a walking vagina.

You don't need one right now.

You need those experiences

Without the lifelong scars

From holding a bad one for too long.

Keep them at arms length,

Hold the leash.

You control this dynamic.

I know your stubborn ass-

Don't make that face; it's true!

You will fall and latch onto them

As a puppy does a new owner.

You will trail their every move,

Aim to please them,

Try your damnedest to be

Everything they could ever dream.

I know you, love.

I've done it too many times.

Puppies nip at each other

Even when they are in love.

This means these relationships

Have Chernobyl's toxicity.

So, listen up, my little reflection.

You are going to get hurt.

You are going to be broken.

You are going to experience Hell.

Pieces of you will fall like dandruff.

Salvage them.

You are going to be a smashed up machine,

And the mechanic needs the pieces.

Don't let those people steal your parts

And pocket the money from your scraps.

Take them back and repair yourself.

Rebuild your armor.

Redraw your weapons.

Re-calibrate yourself before the world,

Even if your motherboard is in shards.

Because this, too, shall pass.

There is a reason why I lock

All I know in a cage

It's better for me to rot away

Then people to know

I know too much

I couldn't keep the facade

I should never have spoken

No one should have ever been told

It should have been kept a secret

Maybe you can send me back

With all these memories

And let me go through all of this again

Let me choose something else

And see where I go

Back to kindergarten

When we became friends

Let me fix our damaged relationship

Skip forward to second and tell L

If she stops mailing me

I will eventually get her phone number

And spam her

Tell K

That excuses don't matter

That I'll always be your friend

And when I first meet C and E

Don't choose to dislike them

Immediately become friends with them

It's fate anyway

Remember to go to Old Settlers in fourth

And stop a disaster in its tracks

Save someone

Who began to fall apart

In fifth grade when M comes

Become real friends with her

So she doesn't forget I exist

And sixth grade when he passes

Don't let it show

Don't randomly cry in the middle of class

I can change my fate

I can save my friends

We don't need to be upset

Everything can be fine

I know it can

I might have to relive my entire life

But that doesn't matter

If I can change our fate

I hate this life

Having to deal with all this

I want everyone to be fine

I want to fix all our problems

Solve all our pain

I want it all to stop

She's so upset

She doesn't know

She mustn't know

If she knew

She'd try to change what I think

But that's impossible

If they knew

I think they would all be surprised

Because no one knows

Really anything about me

Yes my dad is dead

And all my friends are stuck

In too deep mud

Maybe they would think

That I was making all this up

They don't have a clue who I am

I'm just a facade

Of the real me

They don't know what I'm willing to do

To save all of us

They've heard it before

But I don't think they believed me

It's hard to believe I know

That I would do that

That I could.

You will get into that school.

You will graduate.

You will get a job.

You will follow a girl.

You will be lost.

You will be found.

You will cry.

You will laugh.

You will lean on your parents.

You will learn that they do know more than you.

You will try your best.

You will marry.

You will have kids.

You will get divorced.

You will make it to 40.

You will find comfort in discovering yourself.

You will be happy.

It won't come easy, but nothing worth having is.

The world is not what you think.

Look around,

Really look,

And you will truly see for the first time.

The world isn't pretty.

People are mean.

They will hurt and hurt,

But you cannot stop it.

No matter what you do,

The world will stay how it is.

Someday you will accept this,

Or maybe you won't.

But either way,

Keep marching forwards little soldier.

Like a lamb living in a pack of wolves,

you wonder why they hurt you when they love you.

You note that your muzzle is not so sleek and sharp.

You tremble at their snapping maws,

hide from their howling yawps.

But the den is safer than the woods outside.

So you believe.

You might think, one day, to venture from the mouth of the den,

through trees, into fields. 

You might push into folds of wool and 

think, "Here is home, here is my flock."

But the sheep will run from your hot breath, your panting heart.

Your teeth are too bright.

Your fingers are the wrong shape.

Oh little fool.

Oh scared child.

You are not sheep.

You are not wolf.

You do not belong in den or pack or flock or field.

Yours is the darkness of the forest, the hum of the craggy mountains.

You are the lonely wandering bear, 

the bobcat on the ridge.

You must walk the narrow trail and drink from cold streams.

Not for you the frenzied tussle of fur and yip,

Nor the hollow-eyed mastication of grass.

For you, the wind against bark, the crisp of dried moss.

Solitude is your pack and pride.

There is strength in numbers but there is power in standing alone.

If you try to run with wolves you will fall.

Your magic is your singular signal, your unique call.

Be the oak, the moose, the peak of the mountain.

There is no loneliness here.

There is no fear, no heartbreak.

With the expanse all around you

and the sky opened wide, 

you will be the freest creature that ever lived.

Marc and I were talking about going back in time to meet our fifteen-year-old selves and kicking our asses for being snot-nosed punks.

Then we remembered our dads would be twenty-five years younger, and we'd be old enough to hit.

We'd have ID proving who we were, but that wouldn't save us.

"Ya growed up to have a glass jaw! Get up!"