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These two poems are both from Teen Angst: A Collection of REALLY BAD poetry, edited by Sara Bynoe. Send your own poems in to the Tyee's Teen Angst Poetry Contest
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Paul Anthony
February 14, 1992
Age 16
It was Valentine’s Day and all my friends went out without calling me. I was devastated and alone. I just got my driver’s license that week and wanted to go out BAD. When I exhausted the idea of the phone ringing, I borrowed the family car and took a long ride by myself to the railway tracks. I parked under a grove of trees and wrote 3 poems. This was the first one finished at 11:17pm, February 14.
SITTING HERE, ALL ALONE
I COULDN’T SCREAM IF I TRIED
DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL
JUST KNOW IT’S NOT RIGHT
TONIGHT I’M MY OWN VALENTINE
Bloody Murder, Separately We Will Die
Kim Shaughnessy
“Bloody Murder, Separately We Will Die” was written when I was about 15, as an ode to my best friend, Sam. We had dated for about eight months in grade nine, and been best friends since grade eight, we later got back together in our grad year, and lived together until we were about 21. Although he now lives away in a cabin with his boyfriend, and I live on Commercial Drive in Vancouver with my girlfriend, we still have a pretty irreplaceable friendship. In retrospect, we were the Queer As Folk answer to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. The reason I wrote this poem was because I was mad that regardless of any other boyfriends I tried to have during high school, I couldn’t ever really meet anyone I connected with like I did with him. Yet, at the same time, if we dated, we tore each other to shreds with bitchscraps everyday (maybe it’s cuz we were both gay?), so I was pretty much screwed. No boys would go out with me because I always seemed to be preoccupied with affection for him (at least that’s the reason I’d like to remember), so I wanted him dead. Then I guess I thought that if I killed him, I’d still have to live with the memory that I killed him, and I’d never be rid of him, so, of course, the most reasonable outcome would be for us to both die. My early teen obsession with gore, however, is inexplicable.
I want to kill you.
With my bare hands.
I want your blood on my hands.
In my hair. On my clothes.
In my mouth.
In my veins.
I will live off of your life's blood until I die.
Oh yes, you will die.
I want it gone.
Your blood's in my veins.
Get it out.
Rip in from me.
Bleed myself dry.
Just to be without you.
Stab it out.
Squeezing and scraping every last drop out of me.
Oh yes, I will die.
I want it pure.
Our blood united.
Clean from us and our sins.
Together it gives life.
Together it takes life.
My blood killed you.
Your blood killed me.
Bloody murder we are dead.
Bloody murder, we are separately dead.
Oh yes, we will die. ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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