a well-earned self-indictment for all the terrible poetry i wrote at about age 12 and 13, inspired by the poetry published in my high school's "literary magazine."

ATTACK OF THE SAP

hmm... i think i'll write a love poem now. first i have to think of a line from a song i can copy so i can feel very very original for using it. how about "i'm like estella; i like to reel it in and then spit it out"? i don't know what that's supposed to mean, but it sounds kinda cool. someone told me once that it had something to do with that book "Great Expectations" by Shakespeare or Gwyneth Paltrow or somebody like that. i don't know, but i think i'll use it because it makes me sound cultured and passionate.

ok, now, the next thing i need to do is come up with some lines that have been used so many times that they don't mean anything anymore. how about "i love you" all in caps? i can also use "your eyes look like stars" and "i long to feel your touch." maybe if i mention kissing people will see that i am very risqu� deep down inside. i want people to see that i am very passionate, but they can't know who i'm writing about!!! so i guess i had better not say anything that hasn't been said a whole bunch of times before, or use any actual detail whatsoever, or someone might figure out who i'm secretly obsessed with and tell everyone.

let's see... what am i forgetting? oh, i know! i have to make sure that the second and fourth lines of every four-line stanza rhyme exactly, no matter whether it makes any sense or not. the only exception to this is if i use a word i don't know how to pronounce, in which case it's ok to rhyme "won" and "shone."

i think i saw in the march issue of Seventeen this poem that talked about dreaming about this guy. it was a good poem. maybe i will use it as inspiration. if i change a few words in every line, no one will know the difference, right? well, maybe i'd better not.

the moon is in a lot of poems. i should put the moon in there somewhere too. i think someone made up a rule once that all love poems have to take place at night. i better not break the rule, or people will think that i am not passionate, since passion only happens at night.

ok, well, i think i have everything i need to write a good love poem...

I'm like Estella
I like to reel it in and then spit it out
When you leave me all alone
You leave me with so much sorrow and doubt.

I feel like I have lost a battle
A battle that can never be won
Unless you show me your sweet smile
And your eyes like stars that forever have shone.

Whenever I dream
It's you I dream of
That's how I know
This can only be love.

The moon is gorgeous
Full and bright
It reminds me of
Thomas Edison's famous light.

Please don't leave me all alone
I long to feel your precious touch
And your tongue forcing its way down my throat
And all these things that mean so much.

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!