[Editor’s note: Here’s the other runner up in our surprisingly popular Teen Angst Poetry Contest. Drumroll, please…]

I read Sassy magazine (circa 1992), liked drama and art class, and had this huge crush on this skater guy. I really, really liked the skater types in general (ooh, rebellious) and this guy was like my dream man. I wrote a lot of poems for him lamenting our missed love connection, but by grade 11, I was giving up hope of him ever being my boyfriend or of being popular in general. Still, when he paid attention to me by playfully borrowing my supplies in art class or smiling that (still) killer smile, my hope would return, then turn into the despair that fuelled free verse masterpieces like this one:

Can't you see I'm crying?

I'm crumbling

within the four walls

of my haven.

You don't see, you don't want

to see me shatter.

It will soon amuse you

as I take on

proportions of a circus

freakshow.

I silently cry and beg you

to notice me

care

that's all I hope.

Please, I cannot ask you.

It's a charade, you know.

Through the wire that connects us

distortion changes me

happy

act, it's what I've been trained to do.

So you cannot see

how I cry out,

and hope.

To see the other runner-up, click here. Next week: the big winner (ooh it’s bad!).