reverie

Yesterday, I found a floppy disk labeled "High School Papers." I had forgotten how many papers I wrote while disagreeing with my main thesis. One paper argued that all Americans with AIDS should be quarantined for the safety of the population at large, using as proof the sucess of the Cuban health care system at controlling HIV infections. Six pages of argument, designed only to anger a teacher that I didn't like. She gave me full credit, since it's a decent paper that fufilled her requirements, but sat me down for a heart-to-heart about the important differences between autocracies and democracies. As I recall, I didn't like her because she was constantly sitting students down for heart-to-heart discussions of that sort.

Another paper was one I wrote in ninth grade, mostly to make my mom happy. It may have been her birthday or something, I don't really remember. I wrote it from a six-day creationist perspective, using the Bible as a scientific source against the 'secularists.' It appears that the only research I did into evolutionary theory was reading some encyclopedia articles. I remember writing this one pretty clearly- I knew that Biblical proof wasn't the same as scientific proof, but I just ignored the problem. Mom loved it... I started writing a collection of bad, vaguely athestic poetry, although I didn't actually read Origin of the Species until I was a junior.

Here's some poetry that I found on the disk:

Cafeteria Contriteness
You walked into the cafeteria.
Your taco shaped smile
Wished me a good day.
That smile irritated me.
After all, if I was miserable,
Then you should be too.
Your comment was a simple one,
Said softly to start a conversation.
And, really, it wasn’t you at all.
You just spoke at the wrong time.
And I cut you down and wrapped you up
In a pita of pejoratives
An enchilada of explicatives.
I left you standing there
Amid the acidic hot sauce of my words
Like cheddar cheese neatly cut.

On the Death of My Truck
Eddie. My truck. You're there by the window
beside my desk, your wheels squat and your frame
squalid as you sit in the sopping wet
dew. I mourn you in your entirety,
your creamy vinyl interior, the
rusty hole in your floorboard by the brake
pedal, the pale red veterans’ poppy
that hangs, forlorn, from your rearview mirror.
Your chrome bumper still reflects the beaming,
vivid sunshine, a poor likeness of your
earlier vitality. Remember
how we would bounce down the road together,
jumping, bumping, and clumping over the
cavernous potholes? And remember the
time, while we were heading up Salisbury
Street, when you decided not to shift to
third gear, and then not to shift at all? I
almost got you back by smashing your nose
on a mailbox, but I controlled myself
and you. But, I suppose you’re happy now,
permanently left in neutral, your tan
skeleton slouching proudly in the grass.