mena's poem

she was a nice girl, a fine girl
nothing too special in her speech
nothing too special in her dress
she was just there.

her words we not particularly profound
nothing she said tugged at my heart
her words were not romantic, sex-crazed, deep
she preferred haiku and the funny.

and so when i passed her each day
none of her words came to mind
only that one poem on cherry pie.
cherry pie.

i saw her eating those cherry pies.
mouthfuls and bowlfuls of cherry pies.
i also saw the pasta, oily salami, porridge
and salad with slippery mounts of ranch white.

this whole time i criticized her
picked her apart! piece by piece because of her mundane disposition.
because she was pretty.
because i didn't think she belonged in a room of
deep and depraved poets
because nothing grabbed me about her.
and now cherry pies are knives and needles
and cherry pie poems are mirrors and roundabout reflections
spitting images of sickness and self-loathe and five minutes after you eat regurgitation
because she's not reaaaaaally sick, not doctor sick, but she is sick, because her soul is sick and all she wantedwas for me
to listen
and not just listen but to really read in between the lines of each fragment or phrase or stanza!
she was counting on me to be bright enough, poetic and deep enough to realize that cherry pies are NOT just cherry pies
and pretending to blend in, to be mundane, to be something normal and not extraordinary or special just meant that this one girl, this one thin, sad, squinty-eyed girl in my reading and writing poems course was more complex, and less obviously complicated than I could have ever
imagined.

She was more than I could have ever imagined.

mena.