Why blog the 80s?

Due to not-so-popular yet compelling demand, I'm blogging my high school diary entries from the late eighties and early nineties.

You are more likely to enjoy this blog if:
- You were born between 1970 and 1976.
- You thought George Michael would fall in love with you if he only got to know you.
- Your Aquanet consumption easily exceeded one fushia aerosol can per month.
- You penned at least one angsty poem per week about your latest crush.
- You assiduously nursed all legitimate bouts of melancholia into sustained periods of truly impressive despair. When you consulted your journals weeks after writing about each episode, you moved yourself to tears.



THE FIVE ANGST POETRY FINALISTS!

To vote, click the radio button beside the title of your favorite poem in the upper left corner.

WOW!
Thanks to everyone who submitted poetry to the adolescent angst poetry contest.

Keep in mind... the top five poems are not listed in any particular order, nor were they chosen for adding value to the genre.

No, the top five are thus simply because they typify adolescent ANGST at its finest (or worst, you could say). The poems are as varied as their authors... Some are clever, others put the fine point on misery...

Enjoy, and don't forget to vote for your favorite!

DUMPED
The pain you
caused me
bludgeoned
a wound
deep
in my soul,
piercing
deeper still,
permanently
scarring me.
Your blade
sliced me
from the
inside out.
With
blood-stained
pride and
emotion
sliced away,
I collapse.
My heart
drips
from the
blade.
Wiping it
clean,
you choose
another.


YOU
I sit and stare
at your curly Kirk Cameron hair...
In biology class everyday
take my jelly bracelet hand and like, promise to stay
forever in my heart
nothing will tear us apart
I wake up from this totally rad dream
In real-life you are so majorly mean
Stop pushing me in the hall
always trying to make me fall
With your stupid Reebok high-top shoes
you always win, i like, always lose
Take me for a ride in your Camaro
Cupid has struck me with his neon arrow.

ONLY A KISS
Only a kiss, where did it lead?
What was an addiction,
now just a need.
Whispered a wish under the stars.
What was a wound...now only scars.
My love I bled to you in vain,
without you.... I will never be the same.
If later in life we do meet,
perhaps I'll lay my broken heart at your feet.'

COMMUNICATION
I don’t know what to say
Scenarios run through my mind
I have my old stand-bys for starting conversation:
Osama bin Laden
Existentialist thought
How the designated hitter rule is ruining baseball
But when it comes to you, I freeze.

Symptoms Include:
Swapping awkward pleasantries about the weather
and homework.
Stammering to such a degree it makes George W.
look articulate.
Shuffling feet unit it feels like you might erode the
ground beneath you.
Staring at the ground until you become well-versed in
the play of light and shadow of the wad of chewed-up gum
on the sidewalk before you.
Wishing to say the things that the heart feels but have it come out as,
“So what kind of music do you like?”
Having my heart break a little as
Flirty girls corner you
Hanging on your every word
Laughing at the appropriate intervals
At times hating the
Hair flips
Vapid words
Made-up faces courtesy of Revlon
Envy develops as a side effect
wondering how one person can render me so utterly and
completely powerless.

Treatment:
Possible options
Transference of academic residence
Growth and implantation of a backbone
Selective amnesia about all feelings and memories for a
Particular person

Prognosis:
Terminal case of a severe high school crush

A FAILED VACATION
I could have traversed deserts,
And conquered my wayward self.
But gold's hand held me back home,
And I put such dreams on a shelf.
A closer bond I could have forged,
But I chose to let it pass away
Because there was an Imperial "No,"
Which ordered me to stay.
A sharp piercing pain I felt in my chest,
For my heart was returning to its cavity,
The organ was choking on it past dreams
And was blinded by my mind's depravity
We are held back by what is "ours,"
When we mark with an apostrophe.
It ties us to one place and time,
The greatest human catastrophe.

6 comments:

  1. OH my gosh. YOU is totally the best one. It is, like, the best!

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  2. I'm torn. Wounded. Lost....Emptiness is my abyss.
    No really, I need to ponder before I choose my favorite. Whoever rhymed apostrophe and catastrophe gets some kind of special mad poetic skills award though.
    Also, I never realized that so much girl angst expressed itself in gore. What's up with all the slicing, cutting, bleeding organs etc? No wonder the twilight series is such a hit- all these 16 year old girls wrapping their unrequited feelings up in self laceration ideation.

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  3. Only a Kiss is short and sweet. It highlights the transformation that goes along with heartache - what was a ___ is now a ___. It's my fav:)

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  4. As much as I love the Osama Bin Laden reference, I think that entry is in violation of the official rules. Doesn't the poem have to be from the 80s?

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  5. I just have to say that the reference to Kirk Cameron's hair should alone like, make that one win.

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  6. Hey WINNERS! I need your snail mail so I can send you your winnings! Please email me at 80sangst@gmail.com!

    ReplyDelete