"What I Remember"
This is about a lot, when it comes down to it. It's about leaving things behind at the core. Jessi is a friend from high school, a few years younger, but she did transfer to another high school downstate after I graduated. Although I was very close to my entire class (all forty-some of them), this is the only thing I've ever written that touches upon graduation, besides my baccalaureate speech. Perhaps it's too much to write on without any hindsight. I didn't cry, which surprised me, and Steve really did sign out as we walked through the office, which is when I came the closest. It was at once one of the silliest and most moving things I have seen in my life.
The poem takes a bit of creative license; I didn't have my car at the beach; I had my uncle's giant conversion van, but we did go to the beach the summer that I got my car. The car may have been a piece of crap, but it was my first car, and I had spent my whole life cooped up in a small town with nothing but a grocery store and one restaraunt, so being handed something that hypothetically could take me anywhere from Alaska to Mexico was pretty mind-blowing. The summer after my graduation, I lived off of the money I receieved for graduation, so I didn't need a job. In a way, I have nothing to show for it, but how awesome of a gift was it to drive around and eat out and be carefree all summer, without working? Of course, the promise of unlimited freedom that the car promised was tempered the next summer when I had to work...
So that's what it is. Leaving things behind, freedom, and practicality taking freedom away. Kinda bittersweet I guess.

untitled
This is the only poem I've ever written for or about somebody.

"Untitled 1999"
This is titled, alternately, "Untitled 1999" or "Greek Life 1999." Basically, it's every Sigma Pi party in the fall of 1999, and believe me, I was at a lot of them. The girl in the poem isn't anyone in particular; she's partially an honest caricature of many of the girls I would see there week after week, she's partially a girl that was on my floor first year, and in parts, she's me. It was written during the semester it's set in, while the parties there were still like that. It's a portrait of a place and time; the vibe there was great, if a little addictive and maybe dangerous. All the same, I miss it.

"Mission Statement"
When I look at this now, it needs a lot of work. All the same, it's probably the best thing I've done. It's not metaphorical, so don't try to read into it too deeply. I've always believed in being free, spontanteous, and a little wild. It's very much a summer poem, and it's pretty much all true.

"august"
August has its own feel. Especially late August. You can sit outside in the middle of the day and the temperature is no different than it was a month ago, but there's a distinct feel in the air, which I tried to describe here. I kind of think this poem is a bit pretensious and pompous, in that it's trying to be e.e. cummings in a way. It's a slight poem, derived from notebook scribbles made while talking on the phone, and until now has been an untitled blurb in my instant messenger profile.

"Conversations With the Moon"
This is a short story I wrote in freshman year. It's basically fluff, but it has its own merits. The bulk of it is this snapshot of a moment; just two people talking. I wrote it partially for my old roommate Dana and our friend Amy; neither of them are terribly literary and never "got" anything I did. This, they enjoyed. I do kinda like the characters in this; maybe someday I'll develop it a bit further.

"Dodge Colt"
Ok, I don't even know what this was for, but it's a bizarre little rant about my first car. For those not in the know, I was saddled with a Dodge Colt and forbidden to trade it in. As a postlogue, the Colt went to a better place this summer when his tranny started to give and I traded him in on a really nice, fully loaded 1994 Saturn SC2. Although I must admit I did cry a little when cleaning my poor old hatchback out to be traded in (hey, we went through a lot together) I was also literally laughing out loud with joy as I drove my new car off the lot. Mixie (that's the Saturn's name) doesn't yet have a web rant about her, but stay tuned....