Love For Who I was
by Isabella Bazan
Brandeis High School
This girl’s name is Isabella Bazan, but her friends call her Izzy. She’s a freshman that goes to Brandeis High School, and she’s part of Student Council, Book Club, and Writing Club. She’s spent a couple years writing and practicing poetry, and this spring she took some chances to get her writing out there. She entered a poetry competition between high schools in her district, and she submitted poems to this newsletter. She hopes that one day the words that have helped her express her emotions will become something greater than she could’ve ever imagined.
Love For Who I Was
I see my dim reflection and seize,
tears of regret bringing me down to my scabbed knees.
There was once a sweet grin in my lip’s place.
Now I can no longer discern my own face.
The girl in the mirror used to be sunny like a cloudless day.
I’d told myself she’d do great things someday-
but now that feels painfully wrong.
That girl I loved to be, she’s roughly washed away, she’s gone.
Because of me, the girl I love is gone.
Because of me, all is wrong.
All that’s left is her crackling shell,
a girl whose head is trapped in a dark hell.
A broken girl unworthy of passing eyes.
All this face does now is pathetically cry.
Unfortunately I know how I got here;
weeping, sobbing, in my mirror.
It’s a heavy weight to know how life has changed,
how every trait of mine is dishonorably deranged.
There’s piles of problems that stab me to see,
and nowhere to run and nowhere to feel free.
I long for the young girl in the mirror,
how it used to be when times were clearer.
I despise myself, and will forever remind in my ear
that my failures have led me right here.
Interview with the Author
1. What inspired you to write this piece? What was your thought process throughout?
I can't remember any specific poems that got me started, but a few years back at the start of middle school, I found this poetry book filled with love poems, heartbroken poems, grieving poems- and I think those sparked my interest. I wrote some poems here and there back then because of the book, but my main inspiration now is Edgar Allan Poe. Recently at the start of freshman year, we read the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. I got really into the poem because I could feel the main character's pain, his denial, how there was only one certain answer to grievance from an uncertain source. I became a fan of his work, and now I want my writing to be able to hold the kind of emotion Edgar's poems could.
2. What do you hope readers will take away from your piece? What effects do you want the piece to have on the person, community, or society?
It may sound pretty weird, but my poems generally range from topics of despair and heartbreak to topics of hope and beauty in the world. I like to represent both, the pain and bliss in life- like yin and yang. But lately I've seen that the poems I write are based on a hurtful event, and they tend to flow more and seem more vivid.
3. What is your favorite piece of fiction (short story, novel, flash fiction, etc.) that you’ve ever read? Why?
I think purposeful adjectives and the connotations given to words are most thought provoking in a poem. It's because you want the reader to feel what the speaker is feeling- it can't just be a word on its own. Like when you're describing an event, you don't just say "My gut hurt," you say "My gut wrenched" if it's painful, or "My gut twirled" if it's happy. It's all too add mood to the poem, and the descriptions can help the reader to settle into the shoes of the main character.
4. If you plan on continuing to write, what are some goals/plans you may have for your future?
I think poetry is a very beautiful way to describe and represent events or emotions to our society. It helps us all understand one another, it helps us feel with each other more, and it helps us learn what others have learned. Poems sing and tell stories that the reader will absorb, and it hopefully will inspire more and more people to write about what they experience.