Make Up Blog #15: A Poem About Things I Am Good At

Things I Am Good At

By Becky Smiley

I'm bad at writing poetry.

I'm really bad at writing poetry.

But that hasn't stopped me from writing 

like, seven thousand infinity poems 

and putting them on the internet. 

This means that I am good at trying.

Or we could go even deeper

and say that I'm good at 

overcoming adversity.

I'm good at shapes.

If you notice above, I pretty much

made that stanza

look like a stop sign.

Almost.

Just picture it if the third line was shorter

and the fifth line was longer.

I always forget the name of the actual shape

that stop signs are.

In geometry, I used to LITERALLY

just call them "stop signs"

in my proofs.

"All angles are equal and add up to 360.

This means that Figure A

is a stop sign".

The teacher questioned me sometimes

but that's okay because

she liked how quiet I was and how

I didn't try to spell dirty words on my calculator

and how my handwriting was nice.

I can also draw a great free hand circle.

Everyone was always like "I hate geometry"

but you know,

I never really minded stop signs.

I minded triangles.

I minded the crap out of triangles.

But stop signs?

Nahhh.

I wanted to end my poem

with that last line.

But here's another thing:

I'm really REALLY good at having OCD.

I could never end something with an even amount.

Endings are for odd amounts.

I only named two things I'm good at.

But two is an even number.

I have to name three.

You know, sonnets bug the CRAP out of me

Because there's an even amount of lines.

Especially the Italian ones. It's really noticeable

Because there's only two stanzas.

And what more?

couplets.

Heroic couplets end a poem and they're only

two

lines.

I can't deal with that.

I sit there in AP Lit, and

I want to rip these poems to shreds.

Why? OCD.

You probably think that I'm overreacting.

But I'm not.

I'm just as salty about even numbers ending poems

as I am about the intercom lady when

she reads us The Grapes of Wrath and

sometimes even the Odyssey

at 3:10. 

Not 3:15, 3:10.

Well, that's all I have to say about that.

Have a nice day, don't do drugs, and mostly

don't drop out of school and become a hippie

even if you really want to.

Because I want to, but my parents just 

gave me a very stern talking to

about how being a hippie

is probably a bad decision in the long run.

Peace Out.