I'm In A Georgetown State of Mind

My English class is reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and we're talking about things that haunt us.

So in regards to ghosts, and in honor of Ellen Hopkins--NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR-- for commenting on my Monster post yesterday, I wrote a poem.

(Do you know how long it's been since I wrote a poem?)

I wrote it Ellen Hopkins style, but blogger doesn't support the format so let me explain it to you. The lines in between each stanza are supposed to be justified to the far right. Those lines must be read as part of the main poem, but they also make up their own poem when read alone.


Last summer

I spent a whole day alone, wandering
the streets of Washington D.C.
Just me. And my ghosts. It was

lovely to see

them again--to give them my
undivided attention. We caught
up over Philly cheese steak on

street corners

then took a taxi to Georgetown
where we strolled arm in arm
past bloodshot windows,

neck and neck,

as if through a Coldplay song—
The Scientist, maybe,
Or Keane’s Somewhere

Only we know--

and feeling like a kid at Christmas,
flipping through mom’s Ideals
magazines and wondering

what it was like

to live inside snow-capped cottages with
roaring fireplaces and smells of nutmeg
and cinnamon sticks. How would it be

to have plenty

of hot apple cider, divinity and love?
Georgetown is like that when you
wander through it. It's almost enough,

but not quite . . .

and it strikes you that here you
will come together, but also separate.
You are in this world, yet it is not quite

enough

in you. I love you, it whispers,
but I don’t know where to put you.
I wish I had the courage to ask it not

to put me away.