My Past, Frozen – Portrait Of Poem

The following is the poem I read during my Portrait Of presentation. I haven’t tweaked or changed it at all, as I believe that it is optimal to have it remain the same, and thus convey the same intention I had during my presentation.

 

Why does the past seem like nothing but

A daydream? We all lived there, yes, but

Were we truly alive there?

As if the past was a dream, and I, the dreamer,

Losing my teeth and curly hair,

Friends I would make, birthday cake devoured,

The number on the cake would rise,

But the amount of friends and family at the party would lessen.

 

We are accustomed to loss, by the time

We grow old enough, and we’re supposed to

Feel it – it’s too late now.

How can you have time to feel loss

When we’re all natural losers:

Loss is inevitable.

 

Age comes swiftly, and

We call ourselves wise for pushing

How we feel to the back of our skulls.

They call us young adults,

When we’ve been rushed to the adult part,

And never really knew what young was.

 

So by the time we’ve experienced

All a loser can, and how dull our senses

Have become, all we can do is look back

And ponder, “Did I really grow up?”


The beginning of the poem reflects my youth, and the days when I was innocent and ignorant of the world around me. In fact, I don’t believe that many people take time to realize the changing nature of celebratory parties such as birthdays. They used to be such magnificent occasions, but as we grow older, they become simple acknowledgements of time going by. The reason this holds such significance for me is the idea of losing family members, and the impact such an absence should have a child, and yet it does not. It’s not until we’re older, that we can fully comprehend what we’ve been through, yet at that time, the circumstances stemming from such events have already heavily rooted themselves into our identity.

I go on to criticize the idea of growing up and past our problems by simply experiencing them, as some people have told me this is the right way to cope: by not coping at all. This idea was prevalent in my coming of age, as I had to fill the role of an absent father in my family unit; meanwhile, I did not have time to cope with my own issues, and thus, dismissed them. I never really got to experience the stereotypical freedom that most kids got to see, and it was only recently that I retrospectively noticed this. To demonstrate this feeling, I make sure to ask a rhetorical question at the end, to bluntly express the feeling behind my newfound insight.

This may have been a personal piece to write, but I believe that the circumstances that shape our individual character should be reflected in our writing, as this gives a taste of humanity in the words on paper and on screen.

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One thought on “My Past, Frozen – Portrait Of Poem

  1. My Dear Lucas,

    I admire your writing greatly, because like Genevieve you present much truth and the whole truth in your writing without using clever devices or any twists and turns that have some people scratching their heads and debating their intelligence. And I believe that the truth is something that is difficult to express because it is often the thing that most people wish not to hear about and swipe it under the rug. This reflective in your writing in the past, because I noticed that you never truly wrote from personal experience and you had never been inspired by yourself to create. I think this portrait presentation had done wonders for you my dude.

    I am not saying this our of bias when I say that I cannot find anything for you to work on in this piece exclusively, it is so perfect in the imperfection it portrays, that to have it written by anyone else would have come across as inauthentic. I think you’ve outdone yourself here. However if come form of criticism is necessary, I’d say that you should write more in order to satisfy the reader more.

    I truly believe you’ll become the writer that you dream yourself to be, or even better.

    ~Nilave

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