USED TO BE
S A T U R D A Y , M A Y 2 5 , 2 0 1 9 a p p . 9 : 2 5 A M , C D T Remember how life used to be? All the moments we shared are still in our subconscious. Where are you now? I’d love to know. Thank God for social media, I can type in your name on a blue-lit screen… and it will all be revealed to me in seconds. Remember when we would spend our parents’ money on name-brand tee shirts, representing their labels and last names on our chests? What good times, those are still embedded in my subconscious file folders. Feels nice to know that they all dated way before the cloud and snapchat… Before they could have been frozen in time for all our online friends to stalk… Remember when we would laugh at the inside jokes on our slide phone text messages? They were of our own humor, which no one understood. The mean girls would never get it…or even crack a smile at me. Just the mere fact that I tried so hard to become a “cool” late 2000s preteen with my tacky “inside jokes” bothered them…especially the local Massie Block. * So much that she robbed potential friendships from my field… What fragile people with low self esteem. I could care less now…at twenty-one… if I made “cool” inside jokes with my sister…not one single shit. L I S T E N I N G T O Anna of the North, “Used to Be”
Last year, I had written a pretty lengthy collection of poems, of which this one was a part. Ironically I haven’t been inspired to write much since I started posting my poems.
* Massie Block was the main character in a popular book series at the time, The Clique, by Lisi Harrison. I loved those books in middle school. I strived to be like those five mean girls (I’m glad I failed LOL!!!). Massie was the Queen Bee of the Clique. She “called the shots” for her clique-mates, AKA “The Pretty Committee.” The “clique of friends” idea was so popularized at the time with the 2004 hit movie Mean Girls. I have hope for this new generation of teenagers. They have much more awareness of themselves and the world around them, also the maturity level of adults (like, wow!!!).
You helped open some of my own personal subconscious file folders. That is the power of poetry.
I can picture the ones who tried to destroy other friendships, who could not understand those inside jokes…and so desperately wished they could. It does seem so trivial when looking at those moments with hindsight calmly in hand, yet, the lessons learned stay with us.
I love how your work feels, it feels like a comfortable conversation, and the words you have chosen are easy on the reader, yet compelling at the same time.
I agree with April. Your words are easy on the reader and compelling simultaneously. It’s so interesting to me to see the insights you are gleaning from looking back on those difficult times. You are spinning straw into gold.
Love your picture!
Yet again, the two amazing women commenting before me express my emotions on this so eloquently. Your insights and comprehension of then from now are something many will never achieve. Never face or even attempt to move forward from. Much food for thought, wisdom, and realizations here. You never cease to amaze me, Dawn. Never. LYS
❤️wishing for you healthy growth always, as you are doing now❤️