These three things I believe. 1) Breakups are very painful. 2) Writing is cathartic. 3) Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

All three are inspiration for this post, which is a tribute to my bad poetry written during a post break up phase last summer. I stumbled across dozens of gems the other day and couldn’t decide whether to cringe or laugh at the mutilated anger and heartache strewn through some very pathetic words. Nobody every died crying into a pillow, but I’m pretty sure I came close to drowning in a sea of sad, bad words.

In a nod to sarcasm, humor, laughing at oneself, and grateful relief this time period has now passed, I thought I would share a few choice excerpts and tip my hat to bad poems written by heartsunk writers everywhere.

May we all find happier hearts and good words.

“Bad Poetry”

When life hands you douchebags
Write bad poetry

I’m out of luck
You clearly suck
And you can just go
—–
yourself.

When life hands you heartbreak
Write bad poetry

Some days I think that I might be
the very saddest girl in the world
and if I could take the bits
and pieces of my splintered heart
and make a tiny canoe
to sail away on the pool of tears
collecting at my weary feet,
I would long be gone for happier waters.

When life hands you an assclown on the rocks
Write bad poetry

my broken pieces
strewn about

a heart with chamber
fallen out

half numb inside
my feet do walk

this waking dead
fakes smile and talk

When life hands you a bottle of Crapple Snapple
Write bad poetry

they told me to move on
as the ruder in my heart
sputtered pitilessly
and I wondered
how one can gain
momentum
when they are
dead in the water
and the tide of
yesterday
sweeps in
and
pulls
you
down
into the
mire where
naught waits but
ghosts who walk the
empty halls of heartache
beating broken spoons of
regret against tired drums.

(Whoa. Ghosts banging spoons on drums?….Really? I have no words.)

When life hands you an ass in a hat
Write bad poetry

You squeezed my heart
leaving a tart dried peel
as you sipped my lemonade
and scattered my seeds

When life hands you a dick in a box
Write bad poetry

If I could unwind the latch
and open the door of my tinman heart,
take out the mangled mass
of corroded metal and
throw it at your feet
with empty, sonorous clang,
would that tell you how I am?

And if you should happen to write enough bad poetry, as you are busy heaving your mangled masses of soul onto a pitiless, emotionally unavailable word document, you might find that somewhere in the process, just like in life, something better comes along.

When Life hands you a new beginning
Write good poetry

There there my dear one,
your dreams were simply too small.
You ask for a pretty painted shell
when Life wants to give you the ocean.
You ask for a picket fence
when Life wants to leave you free
to run your wild horses.
You ask for a star
on a neglected downtrodden boulevard
when Life has already prepared
a place for you to light up the sky.
You ask for love
when life wants to show you
what it is to be consumed with Love
and set fire to the world with your flames.*

And there you have it. I admit there is a good place for transforming, inspirational, life does go on, you are meant for beautiful and great things, words. BUT sometimes it really is a lot more fun to simply write bad poetry.

the end has now come
therefore I wrote this haiku
to bid you adieu.

*Author’s note- I’m allowed to call that last bit good poetry since much to my complete shock the piece it came from was accepted and published in a real journal and everything back in November. And if they thought it was good, well you know, C is for Cookie. That’s good enough for me.