ninanevermore

One of the things I'm known for when I read poetry is that it's not all serious and doom and gloom. Poetry, after all, is about life, and life can be pretty funny. I tell jokes between poems (so half my act is poetry and the rest is stand-up comedy).

This poem is one I wrote about reaching my 30's and it not being what I thought it would be, and me not being who I thought I would be either. On the surface, it's not deep, but I think I hit on some deeper issues; they are just disguised by the tongue in cheek delivery.

Look back in Angst

I always swore I'd be dead by 30,
because when you're a teenager dressed in black,
you just say things like that.

I swore they could never make me grow up
and now, halfway through my 30's,
I worry I may have jinxed myself
to stop growing at just past 5 feet
and to have a voice to tiny and high
that kindly phone solicitors
still ask if they can speak to my mother.

"She's dead," I tell them with a fake sob
and after an uncomfortable pause,
they hang up, never to call back.

Though I did make it to 30 and beyond,
I still haven't gotten the hang of this business
of thinking and acting adult.

I'd still rather play
and leave the dishes to molder in the sink;
I can turn the most innocent of phrase
into a dirty double entendre;
I still get a kick out of the facts
that the state abbreviation for Kentucky is K-Y
and that people call 900 numbers
to engage in verbal intercourse.

I love making fun of people passing by
who think that they're too cool and too together
for anyone to make fun of,
and I love to laugh at jokes so hard
that whatever I'm drinking comes out of my nose.

I still like weird people
better than respectable people,
and I like playing the radio so loud
that I can't hear the police sirens
when they start flashing their lights
to pull me over and issue a written reprimand.

I still stick out my tongue at the cop
as he walks away after writing me a ticket;
under my breath, I still wish out loud
that he chokes on his next donut.

As the black-garbed teen
wearing too much liner around my eyes
and my angst ridden heart on my sleeve,
I though that at 30 people died inside,
that their hair and their passions
instantly turned gray.

Maybe I was wrong
back when I knew everything,
or maybe I'm just not doing it right
now that I know so much less.

-Nina Erickson
2004
(c) 2006