The dusty past

Between the military, relationships, breakups, getting out of the military, more relationships, and more breakups I have moved more times than I can count. The last time I tried I came up with 11 in two years (this was between 2001 and 2003).

Through all these changes I have moved my things, culled my things, kept or tossed my things so much that there is nothing that I can point to and say that had stayed with me the entire time - with one exception.

I have managed to keep a folder of poems and short stories that I wrote over my freshman and sophmore years in high school. This one purple folder has stayed with me, alone, for the last 16 years. It is getting faded and tattered, the handwritten and typed (no computer printed pages) pages yellowing with age.

I have only shared the contents of this folder with 3 other people besides my english teacher over those two years (Mrs. Erickson in Buhl, ID, a major influence in my life-more on her later). I figure if they were important enough to me to hang on to for that long they should be shared.
I am going to start posting them here and attempt to give a brief explanation as to what was going on in my life at the time I wrote it. I make no claims as to the quality of these writings - please remember they were written by a confused and mentally messed up teenager trying to pretend to be normal and well adjusted. They served as therapy - as long as I was writing them I was not doing them. The demons were coming out.

Some are corny, some are sappy, some are dark, some are just plain stupid.

Comments are welcome.

(untitled)
Hot anger boils
away from me
like water thrown
on a white glowing furnace.
The rage glows blue
as if it were a
razor edged blade
heating in a forge.
My flesh grows orange
from the forces of
madness building in
a black glass ball
that threatens to
burst into green flaming
shards if release
is not found.
With poisonous pearl satisfaction
my fury flies
from me in great
yellow lightning bolts
to engulf my adversary
in fires burning grey
with triumph.

Mrs. E had given an assignment to write a "color poem." She gave no explanation as to what she meant, nor any expectation of style (she was wonderful that way). I remember sitting there staring off into space thinking there is no way I could come up with something off of so little instruction (I still do this today, I just realized). I don't know when I started writing or what thoughts prompted it,

I just spent about 7 minutes zoned out there...

but I do remember the landscape of the poem building in my mind line by line until the end, and I know the face of the person being hit by that lightning. Thinking about the why behind it just opens a deep, dark pit in the middle of me.

I thought I had taken care of that. Apparently not. I am not sure I should keep doing this. I am tired as I write and these memories seem to be something of a free association session and I don't like where it is going.