I found an old hard drive and inside was a treasure trove of poems I wrote in 2008 (or, at least I last opened the doc in ‘08, eep)! This is back when I still used double spaces after every sentence and had an AOL account. Crazy how time flies. So here’s what little me thought poetry was all about.
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Mollie Ann Bloudoff-Indelicato died at age 111 in her Peruvian beach bungalow, surrounded by adoring fans and friends. Cause of death was heart failure due to uncontrollable laughter. (Dave said something particularly hilarious about Chuck Norris. WAY TO GO, DAVE.) She passed on her 110th birthday, Nov. 7, 2100, which is convenient for anyone who has to memorize these dates for a middle school history exam.
Mollie is survived by probably no one because she’s going to be fucking ancient when she dies. She died at the exact same time as her loving partner, The Notebook-style. (For you whipper snappers who’ve never seen The Notebook, look it up with your smart glasses.) She leaves behind 16 cats, two turtles and something that looks vaguely like a dog.
Mollie became an international celebrity when a video of her unicycling while juggling fire to protest cuts to Planned Parenthood went viral. This prompted a world tour where she championed the need for better healthcare for women. She met with several presidents, prime ministers, a dictator (once) and the King of England, whom she found particularly pedantic and boring.
Mollie was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for building the world’s largest garden gnome. She invented a new type of ketchup that was so widely successful, Heinz switched to making peanut butter. SUCK IT, HEINZ. She shamed the Free Masons into letting women join the society as full members and was present when their first transgender black woman president was sworn in. ABOUT TIME.
But it wasn’t all ponies and rainbows. Her inability to finish TV shows or the final chapters of any book series she particularly liked was cute but, honestly, annoying. C’mon, who doesn’t know that Snape killed Dumbledore by now? Then there were the few years she decided to get really into pottery and knitting, resulting in two consecutive Christmases of quite terrible presents.
She also founded the Malcolm Gladwell Books Suck Society, which we thought was a little overkill. (So he’s a bad journalist, get over it, woman!) And, of course, who could forget that time she briefly ran a cult out of the Lindt chocolate factory in Seoul? Oh, classic Mollie.
Mollie founded a scholarship to support underrepresented groups in STEM, which has helped thousands of minorities break into the sciences. She was also essential in lobbying the Secretary of Education to update the national high school curriculum to require courses on sexual harassment, email etiquette and decorative cake baking, respectively.
However, her greatest achievement in life was fucking the patriarchy many, many times.
The service will be held at the holiday resort at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Don’t bring flowers—the penguins don’t like them.
According to obituaryguide.com, we’re suppose to end this obituary with a quotation, poem or “three words that sum up the life” so here ‘goes.
Quote: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
Poem:
“Streetlights people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’ somewhere in the night
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feelin'”
Three words: So. Ridiculously. AWESOME.
Photo Credit: Roman Kraft (because newspapers will totally still exist by the time I die…)
*I found this gem on an old computer while I was looking for a different file. I wrote it almost a decade ago during an early-morning creative writing class. (Resemblances to my actual little sister are pretty far off as she’s a gorgeous woman!)
Waking Up Katie
Two red-rimmed eyes peer through the semi-darkness, their blurred pupils suddenly coming to focus on me. Caked in gunk and watering slightly at the edges, these orbs of irritated flesh stare expectantly. A lone finger, its nail bitten to the quick, revealing the raw pink inside, interrupts this questioning gaze and proceeds to methodically explore the grimy crevices, smearing yellow goop across an eyebrow and down a cheek. The remnants of Barbie magenta nail polish dip in and out of the two small pockets and finally come to rest on one of the pale blue irises, causing the globes of color to cross and uncross rapidly.
With her hair sticking up at odd angles and her arms and legs entangled rather dangerously in summer sheets sticky with sweat, she resembles a mad contortionist, a science experiment gone awry. The being in the bed next to mine sniffs twice and, after casting another, pleading glance at me, rolls over in a convulsion of flailing arms and knotted curls. Soon, her breathing slows and she begins to snore, loudly.
My little sister can sneeze up to 25 times in a row. It’s a world record; we’ve checked. She has asthma, severe allergies, scoliosis, weight issues and chronic colds. When you look at her porcelain fair complexion, knobby knees and stooping way of carrying herself, you’d think she was about to drop dead any second. But the child has an impish smile that confirms it—ignorance is bliss. She still hasn’t gotten her head around her own physical limitations enough to recognize them. My mother hopes she never will.
The alarm clock goes off, its scream beginning the day in a manner as tranquil as a punch in the face.
My sister’s posture tenses subtly as she instinctively clutches tighter, her tiny fingers wrapping securely around a post in the headboard. She feigns sleep but sneezes five times and utters a word she probably shouldn’t know under her breath.
My sister is a weakling, but she’s a fighter, and it’s my turn to wake her up.