A letter to my 10-year-old son

My first kiss was in June

We were so young.

The sky was clear, but the stars were everywhere. I mean everywhere. And we were so young.

We were only across the street at the softball fields, but we were closer to the moon. We were closer to 17 than we were to being in love. She was my first kiss, and I don't think I was hers. We were so young and we didn't even know it. 

I want to thank her for not ruining it.

I  haven't thought about her in a few years. I've seen her on Facebook, but I didn't look her in the eyes. I'm trying to remember if I loved her.

Here's what I came up with:

I sort of liked her,
I sort of loved her,
I sort of loved her sister.

I didn't keep in touch,
I didn't grow to regret it,
I still remember the smell,
I still remember,
I still remember,
If you're reading this, dear, I'm sorry. But,
I still remember.

We were so young.
We kissed again about a year later,
but it wasn't the same.

I could've sworn there were fireworks,
but it was only June.

If you're reading this, dear, I'm sorry. We've been married far too long for you to get jealous.

She wrote on my arms but it never seeped into my heart, I promise. This is just a blog post. 

We were so young,

it was only June.

Invisible Things

Time is running out and so is the ink in our pens.

We had a poetry open mic in my room yesterday during lunch. Six people showed up. In a school of 2300 students, six showed up.

You're telling me only six people are alive?

I don't know. Maybe poetry is a waste of time.

But here's what I know because I think I read it in a book once:
our hearts bleed for a living
and I bet they love their job.
They've been bleeding since we came out and don't try to fix them because that's what they do,
and besides, they don't make band-aids for your insides. Or do they.

Here's what I noticed about you:

• Your heart is flat.
• Your heart has weeds growing all around it.
• Your heart is on fire, and not the good kind of fire.
• Your heart is a toddler in the bathtub. (I know you just stepped out for a second. I get it. The phone was ringing and it wasn't going to answer itself. But if you don't wake the &%$# up and check on her, she's going to drown. And I'm sorry, but CPR doesn't work forever. If you wait too long you might as well go pick out a plot and bury that bloody lump of flesh, because it ain't coming back no matter how many love letters you write.)

If you can hear my voice, I ain't talking to you.

I'm talking to the muscle heads who sit by the knight and make me nervous to walk through the commons during lunch.
I'm talking to the three girls who eat lunch outside my classroom but never come in because blah blah giggle blah blah blah.
I'm talking to the school librarian.
I'm talking to the teachers who eat in the faculty room and complain about the students in their 3rd period classes.
I'm talking to the school cop who's just waiting for someone to mess up,
because believe it or not, even he has a heart.

I'm sick of reading about you in the newspaper.
I'm sick of seeing you on the 6 o'clock news.
I'm sick of seeing kids in Spanish Lab instead of Poetry Lab. Really? Spanish Lab?

Me estas tomando el pelo? (are you kidding me?)
Sabes que, stupido? (guess what, stupid)
Te estas muriendo. (you are dying)
Te estas muriendo. (you are dying)

Your heart left a post-it note on my computer and here's what it said:
Why do you only call me when you're drunk?

I wrote this poem in front of my A1 class and too many students missed it.
Three kids were talking about invisible things.
A girl was laughing even though she didn't think anything was funny.
Two kids were asleep.
Another kid was in the bathroom.
One kid was squinting to see the board because he's too proud to wear glasses and too scared to ask me if he can sit closer to the front.
One girl was home sleeping because everything is too much.
Another kid was thinking about his dad.
They didn't care.
They were confused.
Scared.
Bored.
Looking at June on their calendars and nothing on their phones.
Giggling because this isn't really teaching and hearts can't really talk, Mr. Nelson, you're so funny, you're the funniest teacher, omigosh, can I go to the bathroom, what did I miss last time?, why don't you teach juniors? how do you write a vignette?

Sophomores turn into seniors who forgot their sophomore year.
And they turn into juniors who speak fluent robot.
And college students who think books are too expensive and can never find a parking spot.

And moms and dads and weird uncles who think they're funnier than they really are.

Our hairstyles look different, but our hearts look the same. At least that's what I read in a textbook once. And I'm sad to say that there are too many hearts that I've never seen, so I guess I don't know for sure.

Forget About It

I'm reading The Blind Side and the kid says,

"People ask me if I ever reach the top will I forget about them? So I ask people if I don’t reach the top will y’all forget about me?"

 

Forget About It

I said something terrible the other day. We watched a video and I laughed and told the class:

I don't remember that student's name. I don't remember that student's name. Or that student's name. And it wasn't a lie. I couldn't think of their names off the top of my head.

So here's how I sleep at night:

Let's just run the numbers. Two classes every semester, that's 70 students. So every year that's 140 students. After five years, that's 700 students. Not to mention the four classes of sophomores, that's 120 every year. After six years, that's 720 students. So that's over 1400 students in six years.

I mean, my heart is big, but c'mon...

Plus I have to remember my wife's birthday, what grades my kids are in, my social security number, my anniversary, my address, my phone number, my top 5 favorite movies, my daughter's voice, to get milk, where I parked the car, when I last mowed the lawn, when I last wore this shirt, when the next new episode of New Girl is on, to take attendance, what my brother Josh looked like when he smiled, that God loves me, where my keys are, to tell my mom I love her, to call my dad on his birthday, my Skyward password,

plus a bunch of other stuff I can't remember.

So if I see you in a Walmart checkout line or in an old video, please forgive me if I can't think of your name right away.

I promise, I haven't forgotten you.

Your name is just a leaf that hasn't dropped yet. So before a big windstorm comes by, do something for me. 

Remember when we made the dance video with Caden and Tara and everyone? Forget about it.

Remember Tim's face when he was sitting back at my computer? Forget about it.

Remember when Lexi came back? Remember when Lon got up and read? Remember when Sarah and Addie's blogs made us jealous? Forget about it.

Remember how excited we all were on the first day? Forget about it.

Remember how nostalgic we were at the end? Forget about it.

Remember how I struggled to get your attention because the girls were just too excited about everything all the time? Forget about it.

Remember the day we tried to talk about Jonny, but nobody knew what to say? Forget about it.

Remember how I made seating charts, but most of you sat where you wanted anyway? Forget about it.

Remember how fast this year went? Remember Valentine's Day? Remember jumping in the air on Indie Day? Remember the story about the wise man and the bird and how everything was in your hands? Forget about it.

Remember this: doo, da, doo. da da da doo doo doo. #fancy

Remember trying to come up with a pen name? Remember choosing a blog template? Remember when nobody knew who you were? Forget about it.

Remember when I told you to fall in love? Forget about it.

Remember the story about the autistic son who typed the words "I Am Real" ? Because I almost forgot about that.

Remember the paradoxes, the contradictions, the top 5s that I missed, the pictures of journals I never showed you, remember the natives and the tourists, the hearts you saw and the ones you didn't, remember what your bones said, all the lines from all the songs, and every blog post you didn't read.

I feel like the girl in The Book Thief walking through the crowd of Jews whispering, "I won't forget you, I won't forget you."

But I'm sorry. Because I can't stop bombs from falling.

Found your blog. Blown Away. Please help?

Hello, Mr. Nelson.

You don’t know me, but I stumbled across your blog while looking for excerpts from Joe Brainard’s I Remember. I soon discovered countless poems that I believe are all student submissions. My question is: how have you guided them in crafting such stunning work???

Oh. Right. I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Joe Belknap, and I’m a Creative Writing teacher from Milwaukee.

To the point: Are you willing to share any powerful mentor texts you use? Or are there poets you could recommend to me?

Thank you. And thank you for being a teacher.

Best,

Joe Belknap

Hey, thanks Joe!

I just yelled at my 4th period class (full of sophomores, not creative writing students). So your e-mail was much needed. 

Yes, most of the examples and links on my blog are student examples. And I agree with you 100%. Some of them are absolutely stunning.

So how are they producing such great work?

Answer #1: I don't know.

Answer #2: I teach in an affluent, literate area. Maybe since many of them come from literate families, with books in their homes, that they come into the class already equipped with poetry. (Wait, so poor people can't write poetry?)

Answer #3: It's the platform. Because they each have their own blog, and they know other students will be reading their work (and perhaps Joe Belknap), they put forth maximum effort to make their words mean something.

Answer #4: It's not me, it's Anis Mojgani, it's Buddy Wakefield, it's Andrea Gibson, it's Sarah Kay, it's Phil Kaye, it's Derrick Brown.

Answer #5: I teach them less about craft and more about courage. I get them to look at themselves as creative, then I have them list their fears, then I tell them that we're all going to die, then I tell them that all their fears are irrational because really we're all going to die so why be afraid of anything else, and then I make them get up and do some SLAM POETRY SHARE YOUR HEART stuff in front of the class.

As far as mentor texts:

Joe Brainard's I Remember is amazing. I remember reading that when I was in college and it inspired me to write my guts out. Many of my mentor texts are slam poets (such as the ones mentioned earlier).

Feel free to use anything I've linked to on my blog. Most of the stuff I'm sure I've stolen myself.

Again, thanks for the e-mail. It means a lot. 

Kyle

SSDD

and it all happened in an instant.

Everyone graduated, and everyone got a year older. The announcements were licked and sealed. They saw New York and said goodbye to their boyfriends.

And here we go again.

I haven't posted anything in months and I don't know if it's because I was intimidated by them or you or

maybe these new guys just ain't ready yet.

I saw you in the hall yesterday, but you graduated three years ago.

We're friends on Facebook, but I can't remember your name.

We got married 14 years ago, but we still feel like teenagers.

You're already counting down the days until June. But my calendar still says August. It will always be August around here.

I was listening to Spotify five minutes ago, but the song ended. I was left in silence with only the sound of punched keys and the echoes of students in the commons getting ready for Homecoming.

Listen to me. Do your hair up real nice and put on two squirts of cologne. Ask your parents to borrow the car and stop for a minute to take it all in. One day you'll forget everything. One day Homecoming will no longer exist. 

Don't worry if you don't understand anything I'm writing. I don't either. Pretty soon you'll be graduated and married and divorced and it will all make sense. Hit me up on Facebook. I'll respond to your friend request within three weeks, I promise.

Welcome back.

the truth about tobacco

This is a poem about real things.

Things you can hold in your hand. Things you can feel. Things that will kill you.

This is a Drug Poem. It's not really a suicide poem.

A student once asked me if I ever did drugs when I was a teenager. I said, "No comment." How can you tell someone not to do something you've never tried yourself?

I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't inhale, shoot up, or sniff anything. I'm so anti-drug, they're probably going to put DON'T DO DRUGS on my head stone. My favorite entry in the dictionary is for the word WACK. The example sentence is: all drugs are bad, but crack is wack.

And ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the dictionary was right. Crack is wack.

But this is a poem about real things.

It's not about ghosts or zombies or vampires. 

It's not about grades or SAGE tests or graduation.

It's not even really about death, it's about things that can kill you. Like heart attacks. Shotguns. Choking. It's about real things.

It's not about sadness, it's about the rain. It's about staring at nothing. Keeping everything bottled up.

It's about smoking cigarettes.

There's something romantic about it. If you can get past the smell, the teeth stains, the phlegm, all the emphysema.

But this isn't a poem about lung disease. It's about real things. It's a poem about what really should be said at the dinner table. It's about everything that's happening right now. 

Like how scared I am to be here in the auditorium instead of the little theater or my classroom or my living room. It's just too big. Like we're goldfish in the ocean.

 We don't make eye contact anymore and we don't wear watches either. We don't hide behind pen names.

We write poems about addiction. Poems about death and heartbreak and loneliness. 

We write poems in the car. We sit in Wal-mart parking lots writing poems about the moon, but the streetlights keep getting in the way. We wait at railroad crossings wondering when it will be our turn. We know the train will end eventually, but none of us can see it.

This is a poem about real things. It's not about Facebook friends or even real-life friends. It's definitely not about high school. It's about how all the cute girls got fat. And all the fat girls got married. And nobody remembers where anybody sat for lunch. 

So here's the truth about tobacco:

It takes years to kill you. I wish I could say the same about everything else.