1st Quarter Poetry Journal Reflection

Traffic Jam

If it hadn’t been for the traffic jam

I might never have noticed

the mist hanging low above the cornfield

a sunken cloud

the nebulous haze of unbroken sleep

pierced only by the golden

cylinders of sunshine

and faint red glow of taillights -- they who,

among Nature’s lazy morning slumber,

have long awoken and long

slipped into the rhythm

of growing impatience.

Hesitantly

You say my name hesitantly

as if tasting a drink,

rolling it around your tongue

and swallowing delicately.

You’re wearing your friendly mask,

every smiling muscle in your face

trembling halfway, like

balancing the light switch between on

and off.

And so I do the same, we’re

two sides of a mirror

colliding, falling through.

Could I but decipher

the contours of your raw

skin behind your mask? for

my nose strains

to catch the subtle

smell of defeat.

August

August

is when new year’s resolutions

start to peel away

and the squeaky-shine voice

of conscience takes over.

August

is when you’ve outgrown your old

skin and try to stitch

another one back together.

August
is friends and strangers

switching roles

a film of frost on

every word.

August

is a balancing act,

a fiery maroon

coaxing dying embers.

August

is when mistakes and sweet

remembrances pulse back and

linger like

a crooked arabesque.

First thing, can we agree to give me a minor fangirl moment? I just want to say gush that the daily poetry journal response is literally my favorite thing every single day. The opportunity to honestly express myself in my weird, abstract, metaphor-adoring (see, this is what happens when you listen to way too much Lorde) way is really rare for my fast-paced life right now, and I'm constantly so thirsty for quiet reflection and appreciation of beautiful writing. *gushy hand gestures*

Okay so I'm done with that whole kiss-up-to-Mrs-Leitsch thing (but I actually mean it).

I don't remember which poems "Traffic Jam" and "Hesitantly" were responses to; I think I might have done a free write. "Traffic Jam", obviously, addresses the conflict between nature and human activity, which has been an increasingly common theme in my poems. In the poem, I sort of lament the fact that humans are constantly looking for a more fast-paced lifestyle, while failing to see the beauty in their natural surroundings. I paid a lot of attention to my diction (I just love playing around with words >_<) and imagery: "golden cylinders of sunshine" and "the nebulous haze of unbroken sleep" are two lines that I'm somewhat proud of.

The second poem, "Hesitantly", was kind of a weird experience for me; I wrote it in response to passing someone in the school hallway whom I used to have rivalry and tension with and I hadn't seen in a while. It brought up some... interesting ideas, because I wasn't sure what the person thought of me now that almost two years had passed and I wasn't sure whether he/she had let go of what had happened. It came out of kind of a weird thought process, but I liked the similes that I tried to weave into it, like "as if tasting a drink, rolling it around your tongue and swallowing delicately".

"August" was a response to the poem, also titled "August", that we read in class. I really worked on my imagery and metaphors in this piece. I tried to use repetition in an artful way, being very careful not to make it too monotonous or predictable (because that can happen soooo easily -_-). I also played around with my line breaks (wow the poem looks really narrow xD) and switched lines in the middle of phrases where they sounded kind of out-of-place and unnatural, trying to mirror the disconnected thoughts of teenagers going back to school in the fall. Last year, I did a lot of things that I now regret, so I wrote this poem in response to how those incidents made me feel and where they have now landed me.