Ninety Nine Lines With No Punctuation | Teen Ink

Ninety Nine Lines With No Punctuation

October 16, 2008
By Anonymous

Someday
you will be the inspiration for a poem
which people will love
and which I will hate

They will walk up to me
in wingtip shoes
because I will write for a new age generation
of hipsters
who wear wingtip shoes and talk about recycling
while they drive to far away play rehearsals
or rehearsals of lives they wish they could live
to escape their wingtipped ones

They will walk up to me with my book in hand
This book will contain 138 selected poems
It will be called 135 Selected Poems

because no one counts in the end
and people like their numbers like their lovers
These people with the loafers
or wingtips
I forget which
These people with the shoes will approach me
and I will see the book
and I will hope that maybe their focus will be on one of the other 137
and it will not be
because I will have written the best poem ever
and you were the inspiration
and everyone will love it
and I will hate it
Popular musicians will record songs based on it
and in their award winning acceptance speeches
they will thank me for changing their lives
though they never read it and instead had their songwriters read
this poem inspired by you
which they love
and which I hate

This poem will have no contractions
because I stand for art
and not contractions
and in no way do I condone something which tries to be something it is not
and so I will refuse to put IT IS into one word
and allow IS to hide behind this apostrophetic fucking mask
I refuse to allow people to be blindsided by IS
because you will never understand what it feels to be blindsided
No one ever will
and everyone already has
and it is this big fucking joke
And so there will be a hollow metaphor
which the people in the shoes will grasp at
and latch onto
and they will wear it on their heads
and carry it in bags made of composite materials
or from hemp
and maybe the poem will be made of hemp
or something equally eco friendly
so the people with the long hair can sit and read it
together with the people with the shoes
and they can both sit and mean something together
and they can both sit and mean nothing together
and they can both sit and mean
and mean
and mean

And at times the poem will drag
and the reader will wonder when it will end
and when they least expect it
and when they most expect it
I will end the poem
in a manner which makes it all worth it
and it will make me famous
this poem about being blindsided
or about not being blindsided
or about grammar
this poem

This poem
which you inspired
which I hate
which you love
which I love
you
I hate love
you
this I love
poem
hate
you
I hate you
this poem

Someday
you will be the inspiration for a poem
but for now
ninety nine lines about how lost I am
now that you are gone
will have to do.


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