Writing an angry poem

This is one I wrote in class this morning:

You need to leave
Get out
Or this smile you admire and your lips mimic with spite will be gone forever
Don't coddle me with "It's okay"s or
Tell me it was just a phase
I'm annoyed now, blood flowing like acid through my veins
And when blood boils, humor is the first to evaporate
I like you
And I thought I l
Well, I just lost my train of thought
in the sound of pianos talking and the crinkling of Valentine's Day cards.

I need to revise this into a 19-line poem, so it's not complete yet. The prompt was to write a list of things that you'd lost (see Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art") and then write a poem featuring 1) a dominant color, 2) a dominant motion, 3) no adjectives, 4) no adverbs, 5) direct address, and 6) a refrain. So that's interesting - on my list of lost things I wrote stuff like "erasers," "pencils," chapstick,

Well, I'll just write it out:

Many erasers, many pencils - so annoying
Chapstick
My place on a page
My train of thought
First chair of orchestra in 8th grade - lost it to Ha Eun Lee
Lost my life to Christ
Facsimiles of love, which were crushes taken too seriously
I lost my mind when I tried to take two classes held at the same time, and one of them was Intro to Chemical Engineering
Lost my sense of direction on a highway in Houston
Lost my voice

Writing

This is what I ended up submitting in class this morning, but it doesn't feel finished.

I remember the sound of coffee before the smell.
More soft-spoken than its flavor
Erratic sifting through the filter
Beckoning through dust and dreams and from within my pillowcase
Good morning.
Stir awake and stir "hello"
I stir cubes of Domino and too much store-brand creamer into one chipped China mug
Concentrically intoning the icebreaker between me and this alarm clock that rivals rain
And this morning, She levels her gaze through ceramic, saying
Beware of artificial sweetness.
Because tastebuds and heartstrings are easily deceived,
not recognizing sweetness as a mask for something else
And unable to discern without first cultivating sophisticated tastes for things more bitter.
You wouldn’t trust your judgment without a double-take
Nor would you move forward claiming to be sure based only on a feeling
Would you?
Why then, upon first meeting, would you believe sweetness to be something’s actual taste?
In my time, I’ve learned to question the artifice of sugar and honey,
Who take advantage and presume the last laugh,
And iron woven threads of deceit like the fallacy of fondant to smooth over imperfections.

But I, who lauded “Disney princess” a life calling,
am desensitized by Gene Wilder’s flunkies who preach in choirs bearing technicolor monosaccharides,
cannot pronounce “aspartame” and confuse my Flinstone vitamins with other things high in high fructose corn syrup,
I, who won’t keep count of betrayals and misunderstandings, no matter the enticing or revelatory flavor,
Trust persistently and
Have nothing to fear of artificial
sweeteners

Late-night writer's block PLAYLIST (abridged)
circa 10th grade

David Gray, "Babylon"
David Gray, "This Year's Love"
John Mayer, "Split Screen Sadness"
*NSYNC, "This I Promise You"
Imogen Heap, "Goodnight and Go"
Five for Fighting, "Superman"
Train, "Drops of Jupiter"


-
Re:
Haha the video for "This I Promise You" - so much cheesy seriousness and slow-mo. And late 90's/early 00's garb.

Like lemonade

"At the door the girl suddenly remarks that science, at least, is founded on optimism. It boldly presses on, believing in a future, which, if not better, will at least be more enlightened. It is, perhaps, the only human activity that still refers to our future, to the future of knowledge and even of life. For science, no backward step is possible. It has to stride on ahead, sure of being better tomorrow and better still the day after."

Jean-Claude Carrière, Please, Mr. Einstein

What's new?/100 Hotels for Under $150

A few weeks ago, won free tickets to see Elizabeth Gilbert speak as part of the Drue Heinz lectures. She was incredibly funny, poised, articulate, self-deprecating, and entertaining, definitely glad I went. She read to us from her new book, Committed and talked about going on set for the upcoming film, Eat, Pray, Love, based on her memoir of the same name.

CAPSTONE - what exactly happens to conductive polymers after you leave them in sun and heat for weeks at a time? That might be good to know, since they'll be used for solar cells and the like . . . so we take current-voltage measurements on Organic Field Effect Transistors (OFETs) in the basement of Roberts Engineering Hall, in the Dark, and listen to a Pandora station called "Transistors"

21 - two cakes! One was ice cream and one was chocolate mousse, delicious!, I guess friends come in handy after all. Haha

Family Weekend. I drank a lot of hot apple cider and talked to some parents.

It's gorgeous outside. I heart Pgh.

"100 Hotels for Under $150" - European hotels. Beautiful interiors. Let's go!