stream of teen spirit

i forget (exercise #9)

I forget the first house.

I forget the first street.

I forget the rabbit that I always wanted to pet.

I forget the yelling.

I forget the divorce.

I forget the move.

I forget the reindeer now mangled and broken.

I forget the garden, bright as the sun in the gray sky.

I forget the teachers.

I forget the friends.

I forget the cats, dead.

I forget Rose the geko, dead.

I forget the games. I forget Andy. I forget the crushes.

I forget the gifts.

I forget the child I was.

I forget the move to Vermont.

I forget the common.

I forget how the stars suddenly appeared.

I forget how birds suddenly appear.

I forget the friends, or at least, I try.

I forget the strain.

I forget the next move.

I forget the old smell.

I forget the arguments.

I forget how things were.

I forget  the day I walked in the door.

I forget the new friends.

I try to forget him.

I try to forget the split.

I try to forget her.

And I try as hard as I can to forget the pain constantly brewing inside me.

I've forgotten so much.

What will I forget tomorrow?

~ lilith cathrine d-g., 12, (westminster, vt)

exercise #2 2010

Joe Brainard was an American poet and artist.  He died in 1994.  He wrote a book filled with lines that began I REMEMBER . . . it was 192 pages, every line beginning the same:

I remember the first drawing i ever remember doing. It was of a bride with a very long train.

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.

I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.

I remember one of the first things I can remember. An ice box. (As opposed to a refrigerator.)

I remember how much I used to stutter.

~ joe brainard (1942 - 1994) I REMEMBER

This is one of the easiest exercises ever.  Also works equally well with I FORGET.  Good for when you are really stuck.  Good on its own or good for a warm up.

my dad (excerpt) (exercise #2)

My died died when I was 7 or 8 and I went with my mom and his family to bury the purple box with his ashes.  He was cremated, and I remember him being buried in the ground.  I was watching my whole family dry, but mostly my mom. She had tears coming down her cheeks, like rain.  Although she has been through so much with him, she had a spot in her heart just for him.

~ k. moore, 16, (bellows falls, vt)

if memories came as an indie film (exercise #2)

I remember

A lock and a fog and block upon my

Potential

I remember

That it was infinite when it shared itself with

Silence

I remember to forget

And forget to remember

I remember

The impulse and the insults

I remember

The fight in the halls of the hope of my

future.

I remember

worrying that I won't in times to come

I remember

The concepts of details ans

Never getting that I got them

I remember

Changing the first time

I remember

Missing the 2nd and 4th and so on and on

I remember what I've been told

When my negatized self-esteem

Knew it, just knew it to be true

I will remember, when

My new and shiny yet still so fragile

Ego needs a smoke-break

Cause he's overheating and

Fire and smoke are the cure for that

I remember how I felt

And so remember to treat others as well

Most of the time

I remember scrounging for change

My budget was small but my dreams

had range

When the music is up, and I'm left alone

with my oldest acquaintance

I remember

That these dreams still do

chris chaloux, 18, (newfane, vt)

i remember (exercise #2)

I remember the trailer on James Street in Maine

I remember Mass Landing elementary school

I remember our 5th grade field trip to Popemo Beach

I remember the move

I remember the house behind the movie theater

I remember the huge rock out back

I remember the milk crate we used for a basketball hoop

I remember the bike trail

I remember the tree fort

I remember the move to East Dover

I remember being in the middle of nowhere

I remember long walks to the store

I remember the fire pit

I remember the car crash

I remember partying neighbors

I remember not remembering

I remember moving to Wilmington

I remember long days at the park

I remember basketball and fights

I remember the cops

I remember Woodside

I remember the sweet smell of home

~ joey a.,17, (townsend, vt)

that night (exercise #2)

I remember that day. The day with the girl. I remember her dirty-blonde hair. I remember her hazel green eyes. I remember her.  She was a girl; the girl who I stayed up with and the night felt different. Not like what you would expect from a person like me. I remember her hanging on me. I remember that feeling that had died in me. I needed to know how a guy like me could ever just stay with one girl again. I remember the girl who made me home - the girl I thought I loved. No more though. I had a hardened heart that day but that night, it went soft for a moment. I had that feeling once again.

I remember how I used to feel about the girls in my life. I used to be that guy - just one night love and gone in the morning.  I was that that who had no feeling to stay with just one.  I believe I can try to have feeling for a girl, not just sex, but more.

I am tired of being alone. I need someone to hold.

I remember that night when I began to feel again.

~ chris young, 18, (townsend, vt)

i hate to remember (exercise #2)

I hate to remember

It hurts too much

the pain

I can't deal with change

deranged

chain

the links are never the same

it's insane.

to remember

is to live in the past

never lasts, smashed

the hurt hurts

cause I loved it

so much

a bold rush

the goals crushed.

One thing I remember is being let down

realizing reality

gives a thought of fatality

when you're mas at me i'm laughin

and changes will happen

people make mistakes.

~ jamie c., 16, (townsend, vt)

exercise # 2

Joe Brainard was an American poet and artist.  He died in 1994.  He wrote a book filled with lines that began I REMEMBER . . . it was 192 pages, every line beginning the same:

I remember the first drawing i ever remember doing. It was of a bride with a very long train.

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.

I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.

I remember one of the first things I can remember. An ice box. (As opposed to a refrigerator.)

I remember how much I used to stutter.

~ joe brainard (1942 - 1994) I REMEMBER

This is one of the easiest exercises ever.  Good for when you are really stuck.  Good on its own or good for a warm up.

i remember (exercise #2)

I remember trying to make a boat so I nailed some wood together and tied 2 liter bottles to it and put it in the water.  I remember one time when I was little my sister had a grasshopper in her apartment.  I remember she chased us with a broom and my sister and me ran.  I remember one time I was climbing a palm tree and I fell out and landed on my stomach and my arm was underneath me and one time I stepped on a sparkler that just finished burning.  I remember when my dad and me were on his sport bike and this guy in front of us was going too slow so my dad passed him going 90 mile per hour and the guy sprayed us with his windshield fluid.

~ tony lutz, 15, (bellows falls, vermont)

remember to remember (exercise #2)

I remember standing on the edge of a cliff in the buff with the wind whipping at my three-year-old dandelion fluff hair, looking out at the ocean, stretching unbroken from me to the end of forever, knowing that I was never, ever going to die, because death was something that happened to no one.

I remember the slide, the fall, the head-over-heels tumble down the bus steps, bag on my back, violin in one hand, landing on my head on the hard road, covered in dust and dirt and embarrassment, grinning like an idiot, with nothing hurting at all.

I remember the darkness as it closed in on the car, late at night, the headlights reaching out in front of us like fingers, listening to the man with the smoothest voice in the world, happy just because there wasn’t anything to be unhappy about.

I remember half-waking in the night punctuated only by the street lamp, seeing those eyes inches from mine, wondering with all my being whether they were open or closed, waiting with bated breath for one of us to move or say something or exist in some way, and then seeing those long lashes touch a shadowed cheek and knowing that he was just as awake as I was.

I remember standing far above the city of terracotta tiled roofs, leaning my elbows on the railing and looking past the buildings to the vineyards on the outer edges, with the wind and the sun and the sky all around me, but my feet firmly on stone, understanding none of the conversation around me, knees aching from the climb, and wondering what it would be like to jump, just for fun.

I remember when the world was beautiful, but I don’t remember when I forgot.

~zoe estrin-grele, 17 (brattleboro, vermont)