Here’s What Our Parents Never Taught Us

Here’s what our parents never taught us:

You will stay up on your rooftop until sunlight peels away the husk of the moon,
chainsmoking cigarettes and reading Baudelaire, and
you will learn that you only ever want to fall in love with someone
who will stay up to watch the sun rise with you.

You will fall in love with train rides, and sooner or later you will
realize that nowhere seems like home anymore.

A woman will kiss you and you’ll think her lips are two petals
rubbing against your mouth.

You will not tell anyone that you liked it.
It’s okay.
It is beautiful to love humans in a world where love is a metaphor for lust.

You can leave if you want, with only your skin as a carry-on.

All you need is a twenty in your pocket and a bus ticket.
All you need is someone on the other end of the map, thinking about the supple
curves of your body, to guide you to a home that stretches out for miles
and miles on end.

You will lie to everyone you love.
They will love you anyways.

One day you’ll wake up and realize that you are too big for your own skin.

Molt.
Don’t be afraid.

Your body is a house where the shutters blow in and out
against the windowpane.

You are a hurricane-prone area.
The glass will break through often.

But it’s okay. I promise.

Remember,
a stranger once told you that the breeze
here is something worth writing poems about.

—Shinji Moon

I Am Loud

I am loud,
Demanding attention.
I know when I am being charming
Because I try.
I put on my impressing face
And do my impressing hair
And speak my impressing words.
I tell you my embarrassing drinking stories
And everything else about me
That you probably shouldn’t know.

I am not good at being quiet
Because that’s not who I am.
I am not the sweet girl
Who will leave you with a smile
And a touch
And a glance
Or a single word.
There is nothing of this fashion of romance
About me.

Whole

by Katrina Wendt

Stop showing
You love me
A little at a time.

Stop saying
You care
Bit by bit.

Stop keeping
Me here
For tiny pieces of time.

Because I need
All of you
Not piece by piece.

I love
All of you
Not just some parts of you.

So love all of me
All the way
All the time.

Or let all of me go
All at once
For good.

The Love Song of My Seventeen-Year Old Self

It’s funny how you can come across something at seventeen and think you understand it yet when you revisit it years later, it takes on an entirely different meaning. At that age, I loved things because I thought I was supposed to. I lived and breathed specific quotes because they were alliterative, metaphorical, personifying. I felt sage for knowing the facets of those carefully crafted words, never caring how horribly pretentious I came across to the arbiters I called my “peers.” I had an english teacher back then – in high school – a man whom I adored and admired, who frequently told his students that he taught life, not books. It was a statement I found humorous at the time but I didn’t really appreciate the gravity of his words. Four years later,  I’ve come to realize that I’ve utilized more of the knowledge I obtained from that one class than I have any other. He helped to cultivate my love of the written word and my overall obsession with classic literature by introducing me to poems like the following work by T.S. Eliot.