Since I'm going through old documents I am find a lot of writings from my past. This is a poem my ex boyfriend, James, wrote. His assignment was to write a poem using only the words of others, he had to interview someone, record it, and from that make a poem. The question was something about my closest brush with death. An experience when I almost died. I was 18, so back then it was this and it makes a funny poem. If it was made now it would be about overdosing on Adderall, and that's just not as humorous and everyone has already read too many overdose poems. I think he did a great job capturing my voice. I think this is good stuff and I bet my mom wouldn't mind reading it.
James Spurlock
Sarah Yahm
Ordinary Lives
22 February 2010
the young don’t die
After my mom left Kenny
I was six, she was 29
Uh, she got this blue car
This blue little sports car
It’s important that it was a sports car, because it was trendy.
Can I have my coffee?
So she had this sports car
She loved it.
It was kind of her way of saying: f-you Kenny
I can__
She got into a lot of wrecks.
Because she was frantic
Single mother, and
You know, David was really Ashburgy
So David was a handful.
We didn’t meet Dad—Pete until
I think I was like 7 ½
My coffee’s too hot.
So we lived in a trailer.
My mom got a refrigerator, and
I lived in the box of the refrigerator for a month—or two, and
David lived in the box, and
We lived in the box together—in the trailer.
Because we were moving up—you know
Because we didn’t like our trailer
But we had a box—in the trailer
I don’t know we played pretend in it, and it was a great box
Finally my mom was like
Fuck your box, I’m folding it up, and I’m going to go take it away to the dump.
But she never did
So there was this folded box laid on the entire back seat of our car, and
She was kind of a lazy mom, and
We never wore seatbelts.
When Pete came along he was like
Hey you kids wear your seatbelt when you’re in the car with me!
We were like NOoo! Oh my Ga—Nooo, and made this big deal about it.
I was a short, little eight years old so the seatbelt went across my face
I wrestled with it…
A lot of people forget they’re wearing it, and they just
Mold their will.
It’s only been the past 2 years I’ve been willing to wear seatbelt.
I’ve just been like uh, get the Fuck Off. I’m free damnit
It’s America.
This is me swatting.
My mom hit—she rear ended someone.
Wait.
The cardboard on the box was really fun,
Because when she turned, me and David’s ass went sli-flying, because
No one got to ride shotgun, so
We would slide on the card board of the back seat,
Because it’s not as if we were bound in, and
You can slide on cardboard very easily.
And uh…
Anyways
Mom hit something, and
Me and David went wish, and
It wasn’t fun that time.
I didn’t get a scratch on me, but
It was kind of scary, and
I could have almost died.
There were no police.
There was no big to do.
We didn’t stop driving!
Mom turned around and was like wa-wa—PUT YOUR FUCKING SEATBELT ON!
