Another Tragic Case: A Found Poem From My Angsty Youth

Let me preface this by saying -- I'm fine. Seriously. This is not a cry for help or anything, so relax! I'm just in a phase of listening to the pop/punk genre of my teenage and early college years and it has taken me back to all those feelings of the past. Unstable relationships being the foremost cause of my angst, I can't help but remember all the ups and downs of my emotions as I rocked out to these songs. And don't get me wrong -- it's not all bad. It's good music and it's fun and despite reminding me of unpleasant feelings, it's actually uplifting in a weird way. It reminds me of how far I've come. I wish I could go and tell my younger self that so much good is coming and one day you'll be in a strong marriage with beautiful children and be a kick-butt boss lady at work! I feel blessed to have the life I have now, but I'm also strangely grateful that I have experienced the rich dynamics of life. I mean, what fun is youth without the angst?! 

At any rate, while listening to these beloved songs from my past, snippets of lyrics kept popping out at me. First of all, music is poetry and even if you can't get behind the melodies or chord progressions or the tone of the singer's voice, there is something special in the lyrics if you pay attention! But I digress (again!). As I was noticing these lyrics, I started envisioning them scrambled up and resorted to tell a new (albeit similar, in most cases) tale. I pulled samples of lyrics from these songs and mashed them together to create a poem to reflect my feelings and circumstances when these songs were my jam. 

Turns out, this isn't just plagairism, which is great news for me! There is a type of poem called a Found Poem where you do just this -- make something new out of pieces of works that already exist. So, without further ado - I give you my found poem! The footnotes give credit to the source material. 

BONUS -- you can rock out to these songs and more with my Spotify playlist - Songs from my Angsty Youth.