Project no.1
A Practice in Poetry
In order to further my understanding of how different interpersonal relationships can present themselves I spent time analyzing familiar ones: adolescent romance, a point of beginning for the uninitiated. I submerged myself in the minuscule moments that mean so much: observing a crush in class, anticipating the coincidental run-in at a concert, catching glances through passing car windows. Tiny instances that youthful, rapid hearts latch on to and replay again and again, just because it feels good.
These moments are vivid images that I adapted into poetry. The set below contains two poems, Neon Lights and The Shore, which are extrapolated from ideas in a lyrical essay I had written previously. They provide a space for a reader to identify with the blur of elements unique to the teenage experience: infatuation, fantasy, and eagerness.
Neon Lights
Neither sang
but she could dance,
watching her - must be
what flying feels like -
Long reaching limbs
delicately pale,
but freckled from
summer sunbeams
stretching towards untrackable
neon lights soaring overhead,
filling the town’s local
music dungeon,
she danced.
He watched,
she blissfully ignored
the weight of his glance,
the sensation of his stare.
But she didn’t last long,
it was too hard
to pretend,
he wasn’t there.
So clearly he could picture
those same arms,
her arms
under neon lights
but in a switched circumstance:
the pair walking up to an entrance,
the entrance
of the Rialto Theatre.
The theatre he wanted
and waited
to take her to
The theatre he would
sit beside her in
The theatre he would
watch her watch film in
The theatre he would
tentative reach for her hand in
The theatre she would
sneak a look at his face
to find those dark brown eyes
already ready and waiting
for her’s.
The Shore
The teenage dishwasher
with the soft black hair
with the calloused fingertips
and the dried out palms
The teenage dishwasher
with the keys
to the car
that would drive her
every Sunday that summer
to the Jersey Shore
to the boardwalk shops
to the sand permanently stuck in her sandals
to the sunsets
​
The Chi-chi’s dishwasher
who worked
open to close
everyday
but Sundays.
Sundays,
like him,
were all hers.
a photograph of my parents, whose relationship inspired these poems