I wrote this maybe 13 years ago?? I remember thinking it was so good. Not really representative of what I write now but I’m proud of past me for being proud of her work.
For The Days That You Are Broken And I Am Whole:
Crawl into my bed and
wrap your arms around the whole of my stomach.
You are strong enough to survive this day and
brave enough to face tomorrow.
You have never needed to prove anything to me.
For The Days That You Are Whole And I Am Broken:
Hide all the mirrors in our house and
hand me a paintbrush.
Tell me that it’s okay to hide it in a painting
if I’m not strong enough to carry it today.
I have never wanted to lie to you.
For The Days That We Are Both Broken:
Drag out the photo albums and
my journals from the years that I loved someone else.
thank you for sharing this and a little piece of who you were 13 years ago!! i really love "Hide all the mirrors in our house and / hand me a paintbrush." what a beautiful image :')
OK, so the rhymes are cringe, but I wrote this when I was 19 after I brought Jane home. It was puppy summer: She was 8 weeks old when I got her, and that whole summer we spent each morning playing outside together for hours. I totally forgot I wrote this but when I went looking for an old poem to share here, I rediscovered it. :')
This post is so important and so needed!! I struggle with this a lot with my writing too! And for the record, I absolutely LOVE Paper Girl and the Knives That Made Her. I love Unfold as well, but they are such different reading experiences! (In a good way!)
I actually am still pretty fond of this poem, and I did include it in my debut collection, Volcano Girl, which I self-published in 2022. I wrote this in the spring of my second year of college in Oregon, in 2015. The previous spring, in my freshman year, I fell HARD for a guy… so every spring I spent in that area always brought me back to those memories of freshman year with him.
Valley Of Sickness
Every May, the sky rains
fluffs of pollen that cling to my hair,
begging me frantically not to forget
love’s scent.
If only it weren’t so hard
on my lungs.
Finally fresh air, sticky with a humid forewarning of summer.
I'm obsessed with the line "Every alley a memory" !! Thank you for sharing this and the inspiration for the memory :')
(also, thank you for loving paper girl — to this day, it outperforms unfold in sales, and it's the one i see in bookstores most often, which tells me that it still resonates with a lot of people. it's definitely just a me problem LOL)
Linking an old poem (from when I was 17!) here, as requested! Please note I did not get to choose the click-baity title, lol. I was so proud of this piece when I wrote it, and I like that you can tell I was deep in the work of Richard Siken at the time. I wouldn't write this now--definitely not in the way I did--but I remember finishing it & thinking it was the best thing I'd ever written. A good feeling to hold onto, even if I don't share or talk about this piece anymore :)
I wrote this maybe 13 years ago?? I remember thinking it was so good. Not really representative of what I write now but I’m proud of past me for being proud of her work.
For The Days That You Are Broken And I Am Whole:
Crawl into my bed and
wrap your arms around the whole of my stomach.
You are strong enough to survive this day and
brave enough to face tomorrow.
You have never needed to prove anything to me.
For The Days That You Are Whole And I Am Broken:
Hide all the mirrors in our house and
hand me a paintbrush.
Tell me that it’s okay to hide it in a painting
if I’m not strong enough to carry it today.
I have never wanted to lie to you.
For The Days That We Are Both Broken:
Drag out the photo albums and
my journals from the years that I loved someone else.
Sometimes it feels better to dig open the wounds
and drag the poison back out.
We have never been the type to know better.
For The Days We Are Both Whole:
We have never needed instructions
on how to love each other.
thank you for sharing this and a little piece of who you were 13 years ago!! i really love "Hide all the mirrors in our house and / hand me a paintbrush." what a beautiful image :')
OK, so the rhymes are cringe, but I wrote this when I was 19 after I brought Jane home. It was puppy summer: She was 8 weeks old when I got her, and that whole summer we spent each morning playing outside together for hours. I totally forgot I wrote this but when I went looking for an old poem to share here, I rediscovered it. :')
Captured Moment
Running, my heart as the wind,
the sun a comforting caress;
we leave in haze all the rest,
my jaunty shadow and I.
I chase you, then together we lie
side-by-side, the grass a bed,
laughing breaths pushing thoughts from my head,
cherishing the pause we find ourselves in.
Your pug’s paw, my writer’s hand,
your innocence and my truth unplanned.
Your lightness and my uncertainty.
In your eyes I can be free.
This captured moment flits inside its jar,
release it, watch it fly far;
yet it will find us again,
carried by the wind.
okay i'm crying and suddenly want an entire poetry collection of Jane poems :'))
This post is so important and so needed!! I struggle with this a lot with my writing too! And for the record, I absolutely LOVE Paper Girl and the Knives That Made Her. I love Unfold as well, but they are such different reading experiences! (In a good way!)
I actually am still pretty fond of this poem, and I did include it in my debut collection, Volcano Girl, which I self-published in 2022. I wrote this in the spring of my second year of college in Oregon, in 2015. The previous spring, in my freshman year, I fell HARD for a guy… so every spring I spent in that area always brought me back to those memories of freshman year with him.
Valley Of Sickness
Every May, the sky rains
fluffs of pollen that cling to my hair,
begging me frantically not to forget
love’s scent.
If only it weren’t so hard
on my lungs.
Finally fresh air, sticky with a humid forewarning of summer.
Shutting the door behind me quickly,
I check for fluff that might’ve followed me in.
There’s no place to go in this valley.
Every alley a memory,
every song a distant ache.
I dream of floating, light as the fluff,
carried away in the wind.
Across the seas with nothing clinging to me,
escaping this lovesick canyon.
I'm obsessed with the line "Every alley a memory" !! Thank you for sharing this and the inspiration for the memory :')
(also, thank you for loving paper girl — to this day, it outperforms unfold in sales, and it's the one i see in bookstores most often, which tells me that it still resonates with a lot of people. it's definitely just a me problem LOL)
Linking an old poem (from when I was 17!) here, as requested! Please note I did not get to choose the click-baity title, lol. I was so proud of this piece when I wrote it, and I like that you can tell I was deep in the work of Richard Siken at the time. I wouldn't write this now--definitely not in the way I did--but I remember finishing it & thinking it was the best thing I'd ever written. A good feeling to hold onto, even if I don't share or talk about this piece anymore :)
https://thoughtcatalog.com/caitlin-conlon/2017/06/loving-two-people-at-once-shouldnt-be-poetry-but-somehow-it-is/
this is so special to me i feel like i got to meet 17y/o caitlin 🥹 thank you for sharing this!!