I found a vault of old and lousy poems I wrote. Here are a few. They're each horrible in form, but they attempt to show how I was feeling at different times. These are from 1999 or earlier. Can you guess which is from 3rd grade?

Maximum Wage

How pitiful one must be who measures his life by material things,
Pity those that intensely toil to achieve their jewels and rings,
Striving for large salaries to provide a false sense of power,
Judging their happiness by earnings and grading their life by the hour,
When soul and body separate so do treasures and one as well,
Their heart silently lacking the spirit they did sell.

Fire

Worth becomes as death doth flow,
Everything you do now know,
A mistake you made from the beginning,
Wasting your life away with sinning.

Satan loves to make you laugh,
Delights in pointing the inward path,
A straight, broad, and easy trail,
Temptation's fire lights it well.

Merciful Bulk

I am thankful my heart is fragile,
so that its halt is certain,
kindly hindering my being
from suffering more within.

Pockets

The fat man steps out and walks down his street
Catching gray air as he watches his feet
Wishing he could break a moment and sit
If only you could see what’s in his pockets.

The shy girl sighs as she steps on the bus
She’s hiding something from the rest of us
Going back as far as she can get
Oh, to see inside her pockets.

The teacher closes his classroom door
And hears the snap like never before
Considering when he should quit
They wonder what's in his pockets.

The blind man holds to his cane
As he saunters slowly up the lane
Ignoring dead flesh filling his sockets
and with his hand fills his empty pocket.

Unfiltered Sight

What looks right in the mirror is wrong to the eye,
What's strange to you in the reflection is fine,
For our eyes are all coated, try as we might,
To see one another with unfiltered sight,
We fail in the attempt of seeing the truth,
That lies beyond the conceptions of youth,
Which is the basis of lust, that leaves in our fall,
As we grow older, at which point we see all
With moist open eyes to take in the light,
Seeing the truth with unfiltered sight.

What Shall They Say?

I wonder what they shall say
after I am gone.
Will they go about talking the same,
Will they lower their brow at my name,
Or celebrate the thought of me,
And name their children after me?
Fresh flowers decorating my lower half,
Will they sing and will they laugh,
Without me,
Will they visit my silent stone,
Will it mold,
And will my grandchildren grow old,
without me in their memory?
How shall I live after I am dead,
Will I be favored upon that day,
Will I be remembered,
What shall they say?

A little less than three days.. Everyone asks me if I'm nervous about the flight. I was, but now I'm not. I doubt I will be.

This will the first Christmas away from my family. I'll miss it. I love getting together with my cousins. It's like old times.

Sam and I went to the Rave, which is an enormous movie theater. We saw Monster's Inc. (9/10) and Lord of the Rings (9/10). They were both very, very good.