Travis: A Non-Traditional Love Poem

      I'm not a big poetry writer (or reader). Poetry is probably my least favorite thing to write (I'd honestly rather write an essay). Sometimes, however, if I'm really inspired, I can actually write an okay poem. I'm posting about another prompt from time in Andover. This prompt was to write a love poem in second person (using "you"). It could be any sort of love poem, so I decided to write about my love/strong dislike relationship with my little brother. Here it is (and here's a picture of us too)...

Travis

These are the reasons

why you are my favorite/only brother:

You eat popsicles--

like two a day--

every summer

while riding around our driveway

on your scooter, sometimes

in your robe.

You have lists--

a ranking,

an order--

for everything.

Whether it’s video game levels,

Tom Petty songs, or supervillains,

there’s always a first favorite,

second favorite, third favorite,

and so on.

You grumble,

and sob,

and whine annoyingly

about practicing the guitar,

but you secretly love

to sing and strum.

You know you do.

You have perfect pitch

and sing like a pro,

and laugh when

I try, hopelessly,

to harmonize.

You have

a scary, amazing

photographic memory.

Of course,

you’re also dumbest, dumbester,

and even dumbestest sometimes.

You wear stripes and plaid.

It’s horrible.

But sometimes,

you listen to me

and go change.

But you never comb

your stick-up-every-which-way hair.

You just screech at anyone

who tries to tell you

that you look like a rooster.

You watch The Flash with me

every Tuesday night,

and you don’t complain

when I pause the TV

to jump all around

the room in excitement

and tell you who I think

the real bad guy is.

Though you already know,

because you already watched

the episode without me

even though I told you

that I would never speak to you

ever, ever again if you did.

And here you are--

watching it all over again,

because I don’t like

to watch alone.

If I let you,

you’ll talk my ear off

until I’m about to die

from hearing your top ten

video game bosses or chapter names.

You and I

giggle every time

we remember

Mom saying,

“Mrs. Itchland,”

and then you

“laaaaa”

and we laugh even harder.

By the way,

I’m really sorry

about that one time

when I screamed at you

and made you cry after you took

the ice cream

that I had selfishly

saved for myself

and put your nasty strawberry syrup on it.

I don’t know how you like that stuff.

Dude, Little Man:

you drive me absolutely nuts

and cause me to whisper maliciously

under my breath that I wish

I was an only child,

but I’m actually thrilled

that my wish never comes true, because

you amaze me

every

single

day.

That pretty much sums up my relationship with my brother. Let me know what you think!
                      
                                                                                                                     --Brianna