When I Was
A Yonge Magazine original poem, about growing up.
When I was 18
I wrote about all the dreams I had of my future self.
I wrote about where I wanted to end up,
where I wanted to fall in love again,
where I wanted to finish the lines of my first book.
I wrote that every big aspiration I carried with me,
could blossom into something real and full.
I wrote that if I could shake the troubles plaguing me,
I could become something brilliant.
I wrote with passion,
with optimism.
When I was 19
I wrote about drinking,
and I wrote about fucking,
and I wrote about drinking some more.
I wrote about wandering aimlessly
and about being a scoundrel, and scum
and about the different human I could
see myself transforming into.
A human I didn’t like very much.
I wrote about darkness and a blinding depth,
about feeling sad and empty and
more than anything, about being lonely.
I wrote about my lonesome heart
even though
my bed was often kept warm
by the frame of a new woman.
Maybe that’s why I wrote about being so damn lonely.
When I was 20
I wrote about new beginnings.
I wrote about university and a new job
and about new people who I could have progressive conversations with.
But I also wrote about being lost,
and about my short but long walks home from the bar,
where I would think about everything and nothing.
And on those nights,
I sometimes wrote about the way the moon looked,
how it was bigger and more spectacular
on some nights
than on others.
Because on those nights I looked up and I saw it,
and on other nights I just looked straight ahead,
instead of bothering to glance up at the clear, dark sky.
When I was 21
I wrote about the world shrinking around me.
I wrote about not writing,
and wanting more than anything to do so.
I wrote about losing friends for no apparent reason,
and about my grandmother
dying,
and about crying while she
smiled down on me through the clouds
while I listened to Louis Armstrong tell me that
The Whole World Was Smiling With Me,
so I smiled too.
I wrote about things I love and which entertain me,
and I wrote frequently, but it never felt like enough.
I wrote about falling in love again.
About looking at someone I’ve looked at my entire life,
but seeing her in a different way,
through a different lens
and in a different breath.
I wrote about being scared of
how much I can love someone,
and about never wanting to lose that person
and how everything is better when you can feel love like that.
I wrote that, because of her,
chocolate tastes better.
Really? Impossible.
Really.
And that jokes are funnier, a blue sky is brighter,
and a breeze is fresher.
When I am 22
hopefully I will just keep writing,
until my hands type away to dust
and my soul keeps the words coming for me.
