I'll Probably Just Write About It.

The Girl Next Door

As mentioned before! This blog is for a sneak peek into the living and breathing insides of my work! If you would prefer to try to put pieces together and come to conclusions on your own, I will put the link to each of my pieces above each blog entry so you can read it and take it apart on your own, then you can come back here and compare what you have pulled from the piece vs. what I put into it! Here is the link for today's Poem(s). "The Girl Next Door" 

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"The Girl Next Door" was written in the winter/early spring of 2024, right at the beginning of the year.
At the time, I was 17 years old and lived alone in a janky little studio apartment above a music studio. I was a freshman in college, studying to get a bachelor's in psychology.

The idea, the thought, started one night as I was sitting alone in December 2023. I was seated on top of my 2001 Saturn S-series, reminiscing.
I have always had this need and desire to be chosen and wanted, and, right as I turned 17, I had to end a long-term relationship that gave me that. So, a lot of my 17th year of life was me frantically trying to fill that space. Because of this, I got into a relationship around November 2023, which lasted less than a week due to his parents' incessant need to control his life. In December, I was lost, confused, and trying to fill this space inside of me.

I was outside, thinking, when across the street a truck pulled into the driveway, and a boy about my age got out and began unloading firewood and building a fire. I didn't find the guy attractive, but the thought crossed my mind, "What if he looked over and saw me? What would he think? Would he find me attractive? Interesting?"

Now, many people read "The Girl Next Door" and comment about it as if I, myself, am in love with the girl. They give me advice on how to make my move. They tell me to just tell her how I feel, and it will be okay. And I never have the heart to tell them that I can't because I, myself, am the girl next door, and the affection within this poem is fabricated to ease my temporary loneliness.
Kind of pathetic, isn't it?

Well, this is where the idea began for "The Girl Next Door." I started, then, brainstorming how I wanted this poem to go. What I wanted it to say, how I wanted it to look, to sound. I began trying to determine how obvious I was going to make it that the narrator/speaker of this poem wasn't real. I considered writing things that no one with a simple "crush" on someone else would know.

But, as time went on, the idea died and stayed inside my notebook. Classes started, and I didn't have time to work on it. So, it sat unfinished, hoping I would come back to it someday. Which I did.

After a few weeks of school, I had wiped the poem from my mind. Until I was in my creative writing class, and we finished going over short stories. It was time for poetry. I was in a bit of a writing frenzy after we worked on our short stories, so I was ready and motivated. I searched through my notebooks to find ideas for what I would write when I came across some old stanzas written for this poem. Inspiration struck, and I brought it everywhere with me to work on it.

It took a little while before I came up with the format; it is self-invented, as I was in a frenzy with inventing and experimenting with stanzas, meter, and rhyme.
The rhyming scheme is as follows: ABCD BCD EFG AEFG HIJ HIJ AKLM, so on and so forth. The rhymes are in a series of three, with A repeated at the beginning of every third stanza.
The meter is as follows: 9, 11, 1-2, 11, break, 11, 1-2, 11, break, 11, 1-2, 11, break, repeat.

The poem begins with the first 10 stanzas describing the girl next door, introducing the fact that the speaker loves her and pays very close attention to her. I intentionally had it begin with more physical aspects, so it seems like a genuine crush with someone you might "see across the way." But, as time goes on, the speaker begins to get deeper into things not many would notice, helping along this idea of affection and admiration. For example, noticing the "tears and fears" that fog up and cloud her glasses.

As this continues to increase, the speaker brings up things that many wouldn't know unless they had already established a strong and trusting relationship with the girl. For example, "A girl who loves to learn more than she is taught, / Laughs, / And couldn't imagine a world without God." Or "Who just can't let go when he says his goodbyes, / Cries, / And can't get his name out the back of her mind." This makes it clear, already, that this is more than a "across the way" kind of crush. This is an established friendship, something where the speaker knows a lot about the love interest.

However, the poem then switches gears by saying "And I wish, from the depths of my soul, to tell, / Express, / Just how much she means to a "nothing" like me. // She is real and feels more than someone like me, / Impressed? / I can love her so much? Though I'm nothing more, // Than a vision by the girl next door, / Just a figment of the imagination, / Dreams, / Of the girl who lives on the corner of 'lone."

This takes the poem from a pattern that speaks of the girl, slowly showing more and more about her, and brings it towards the speaker and who they are. The speaker describes themselves as "nothing," " a figment of the imagination (. . .) of the girl," and " a vision by the girl."
Some may read this and see someone who feels as though they are nothing to the person they are in love with. I love that interpretation and that the poem can be read or understood in many ways. However, the intent is for these lines to be read literally.

The last stanza is supposed to stand out in a very distinct way, saying "I'm made to bring her to illumination, / Beams, / Of the minds and thoughts of more and less than none." When someone reads this poem, it is common for them to assume the previously mentioned idea, that the speaker feels as if he is simply perceived as "nothing" to the girl next door. But this last stanza goes into the idea of why he was made, which is intended to make the reader think and wonder.
Even if someone were to have a crush like this, where they feel as though they are nothing in comparison, it is not common for someone to get to a point where they are convinced they are created for the sole purpose of bringing the other person to light.

Many pieces of my original writing made their way over to the final, formatted version, but I have "bloopers," so to speak, from before I created the format it is written in. The first is-
"I am in love with the girl next door
Who sits outside on the curb
I am not sure what she is doing
But she looks cold
And she seems lonely."
This stanza is one that I eventually decided did not fit the format I had and didn't quite fit the feel I had wanted for the poem itself. But it does capture so much of the creation of the poem itself. The "girl next door" sits alone on the curb, and she looks cold and seems lonely. This is how the whole thing started, and would have also left the reader wondering why they wouldn't just go talk to her if they were already close enough for them to know all of these things about her.

Another "blooper" includes-
"I am in love with the girl next door
Who wrote her name on her shoes
A couple of years ago, and it still sits there
Faded,
Even though that name is no longer hers."
This, if people knew more of my background, would have helped readers understand the purpose of this poem. "Even though that name is no longer hers," refers to a time in my life when I did go by a different name and identity. My actual/current/legal name is not to be shared with my writing, but when I was 15-16 years old, I identified as Transgender. I went by the name Kayden (there are a few references to him in my poetry, such as in "Versions of Me" ). When I was 15, I bought the shoes mentioned in this poem and wrote the name "Kayden" on them. So, even though it was no longer my name by the time I was 17, I still wore it on my shoes.
I decided not to add this piece to the poem later on, as I didn't want to introduce that aspect specifically to this poem, and it didn't fit into the format.

The last "blooper" was-
"I am in love with the girl next door
Who writes about everything, but doesn’t think that any of it is worth keeping
I’ll keep it."
Again, this didn't fit the format. However, I did love this idea. That even though I didn't think any of it worth keeping at the time, someone may want to, and until I meet that someone, I can be that someone. It is an odd way to think about it, but it worked, and I have actually kept just about all of my writing since I was 17. Maybe because of this line, maybe not, I'm not sure.
I also didn't add this piece because it made the speaker feel too real, which wouldn't work, as I needed to at least hint that the speaker was not real, but invented for the sake of this poem.

Hope you enjoyed the poem and have learned more about it! Keep reading!