A few minutes later, I located the goldmine - heartbreak haiku! - lodged in the depths of a twentysomething journal. Not to bore you with personal detail, but this bout of Japanese-style poetry came courtesy of a long-time former boyfriend, he of the dating archetype that we all should go out with at least once while in our twenties: he was good-looking, he was wildly interesting, he was an utter commitment-phobe. A fantastic guy in many aspects, but not my fantastic guy. When the inevitable breakup came, it came after 2 years of much sturm und drang and heel-dragging and dramatic! breakup! speeches! You know, the usual.
What could be more self-indulgently meta than bringing you bad breakup poetry on an already self-indulgent blog, you ask? I have no idea! But while I try to sort through this other post, I may as well embarrass myself with howlingly bad haiku for your amusement.
Delicate ones, please cover your eyes or just skip to tomorrow's post if you can't bear saucy language. Forgive me, but in the throes of breakup agony, I took leave of my inner feminine censor. For your protection, I've edited out the particularly naughty letters. Brace yourselves:
I f*ck*ed it up bad /
the boy I left has left me /
closeness made us part
And just in case that doesn't pain you sufficiently . . .
Big, shiny diamonds /
the promise of forever /
rocks can't comfort sh*t
GHASTLY almost to the point of being awesomely terrible, no? This, dear ones, is why you must pinky-swear that you will never, ever throw away your old diaries. After all, a girl never knows when she'll need to humiliate herself on the web for the delectation of her readers. And there is no faster way to feel better about the aging process than to see in written form what a complete nitwit you were back when you had no wrinkles and cellulite to fuss over.
More later on an actual subject of interest, and - forgive me - no more heinous breakup poetry. Not this week, at least.
32 comments:
oh, that is GREAT! :) makes me want to pull out my old journals and memos...perhaps i'll do that this evening...
Love it. It's so much fun to look back on the past and what better way than diaries and photos.
I will definately encourage my children to journal.
Thanks for sharing.
This is freaking hilarious! And oh, don't worry, I have gazillions of journals filled to the brim with awesome shit like this. They pain me - um, embarrass me? - so much that I cannot even look at them. Seriously. You know, from back in the day when I was a really. good. poet.
Very funny... I wrote a lot in journals when I was younger, and I read them not too long ago... I wrote pgs after pgs about my in depth analysis of my love life and ex's in college... I was so deep.
You are too funny. I could never write my own haikus!!! Good for you!
not humiliating at all! Glad you didn't throw them out!
(don't forget to enter my new contest, i bet your board would rock!!!)
-kelley
www.myislandwedding.com
Ahahahahahaha!!!! Those are fantastically awful! I, too, am guilty of writing bad breakup poetry. Maybe I'll have to dig some of it up and post it one of these days.
Hilarious! I had a journal all through high school, but stopped when I got to college. I wrote all about loving Ben and hating Scott and ... wow... it's so much fun to go back and read. I'm getting butterflies in my tummy just thinking about how I felt back then!
Funny. Funny. Funny. Never write something down you don't want to see in print, right?
OMG, I love it. Just priceless stuff. I could seriously take an entire day off of work just to read my old stuff and have the time of my life doing so. Major props for putting yours online... I raise my glass!
Absolutely amazing. That's all I need to say.
HAHA.
This has kinda inspired me to do a similar post on a rainy day.
I'm sure I've got some winners.
Are you sure angst poetry isn't your true calling?
Thanks for the laugh! Those were truly fantastic. I begrudgingly admit I'm way too shallow to have any sort of ability to write poetry or even keep a journal.
I think I'm SERIOUSLY late on this but your blog looks FANTASTIC. It really does. Congrats on the new look!
Old journals are certainly priceless. I began journaling in 6th grade. Those are so boring. But I kept it up all through college, and they certainly get interesting... Although I've never had break-up poetry. Maybe I'm not so deep after all.
All my journals make me want to do is smack my former self for staying with my ex so long when it was clear through what I wrote that he really was a jerk.
oh boy.. I love my old journals... i have poetry as well.... I have one from highschool and one from college... i try to update now, but its hard to rmemeber!! xxoo
Every journal I have only has one entry on the first page.
"Dear Diary, I am so excited I got you. I will write all about my life the good and the bad. See you tomorrow!"
And I never would write again...
i never kept a journal until i started blogging, and even now, i don't really consider my blog a journal. i'm sad that i missed out on all the embarrassment from my earlier years.
Oh now, this is clearly a hidden talent Miss Pretty, you have been holding out on us! Hee-hee, these are priceless!
Great post!
tp
These are so funny!! While I didn't write in haiku, I do still have lots of poetry from high school in a memory box. Maybe I'll dig it out and "humiliate" myself too!
These are the most hilarious, heart-wrenching haikus of woe!
I recently discovered a former college (and post-college) boyfriend has a 22 page (good lord...) letter I wrote him when we broke up at the end of my senior year. I'm considering asking him to send it my way so I can see how angsty I truly was. I mean, my goodness, 22 pages!! Front and back! On college-ruled paper!!
bahahaha. love it. i should post the letter i wrote to myself after my last breakup and before my mr. wonderful came along...the opening line went something like this..."dear milltini, pull your shit together"...classic.
I think I'm the only person alive who never had a bad poetry phase. Bravo for younger me, but sad for older me.
i found a list my best friend and i made our junior year of college where we listed everyone we had every kissed, and had it all coded by what fraternity they were in, state from, etc. it is so embarrassing! but glad i still have it. hidden away that is.
This is how OCD I am...I have been known to go back and correct typos, edit or put footnotes on my old journals. A middle school chum gave my my first journal when I was 13 (I think...) and I wrote religiously for years and years, sometimes daily. The more I had to fill my life, the less frequently I seemed to write. Hmm. With kids, it's been even worse.
As far as those old love letters go, I regret discarding a handsome stack of them some years ago from a particularly ardent suitor when I was sure that I had met Mr. Right, who by the way turned out to Mr. Wrong. I didn't want to make him jealous. Now that I have met Mr. Right, AKA:RL-Style Hubby, I think sometimes of those lost prose that were so carelessly discarded. Handsome hubby would be fine with their retention and probably poke fun at the honey-dripping sentiment (which is so not him).
Goodnight as my teething toddler is calling (screaming...) for his mommy.
You are too funny! I left you something on my blog!
This is hilarious. Makes me want to dig out my old journals.
Oh no...not the old journals! Hahaha! That's too funny. I also have a "memory book" from highschool, where my friends wrote me letters, and made song dedications and there's even proof of DRAMA...I love going back and getting a good laugh!
Hahah! Way to whip it out! Awesomeness.
I think I have a few journal entries like that that make me want to go hide under a rock. Thank God we're smarter and more grown up now!! LOL!
Oh dear me! I have my old journals and after enough wine I die laughing over the entries!
Fortunately, I was too shallow in my younger days to even explore poetry as an outlet for ny romance-related angst...although I do wish I had a record of those times. These are too, too funny - thank you so much for sharing!
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