Brittany Crosby

I don’t know exactly when it began. Maybe it was when people gushed over my Dartmouth sweatshirt while I rushed through Boston’s Logan Airport to catch a bus headed for my Freshman DOC trip. Or maybe it was when my peers would mock me when I did something they deemed odd: “You’re an Ivy League student and you don’t know how to cross the street?!” (As a matter of fact, I do know how to cross the street. I just like waiting for the walk signal —besides, I try to set a good example for the children). Whether it sprang from the positive comments or the negative backlash, I may never know. But some time after matriculation, perhaps during Orientation week, I realized that being a Dartmouth student was something to be proud of. I learned the alma mater quickly, throwing my arms around the shoulders of ’09s, ’08s, ’07s, ’06s and other alums, praising the granite in our muscles and our brains.

We all remember our first crush on Hanover: the quintessential New England town, small enough that everyone knows everyone else, the congenial aura of students and townies alike. Because I didn’t get a chance to visit Dartmouth before I decided to attend (for some reason, I thought the virtual tour would suffice), my introduction to Hanover was on a warm September day, the sunlight hours still long, the air lacking the crisp bite of autumn, the campus alive as people introduced each other with a “Hey, remember me? We’re Facebook friends. I saw that your favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird and I also listen to Dave Matthews…” Oh, Hanover. It was love at first 5:45 wake up call.

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would compare thee to a summer’s day

although you’re prone to the change of autumn.

I’d fix you in meter and rhyme to say

how dreadful thee semantics have become.

You could kiss me and stop all this madness:

there’s no reason to be in love alone.

Even Laura would cure Petrarch’s sadness

and even Marvell’s coy mistress would moan

under the weight of his body, his words

so kind, but your love doesn’t bend, I’ve learned.

Even Keats and Donne would find it absurd

to worship you as I await my turn.

For it’s too much work to write poetry

when all I want is you to sleep with me.

here were promises on that January night

as we stood on the balcony

and watched over the city of München.

Before we left for your hometown of Rosenheim,

you taught me three phrases:

Guten Tag

Ich liebe Dich

Das ist gut

With my eight word vocabulary,

things could be nothing but wonderful.

Against the melody of late night traffic,

you held me and swore

that you’d never held anyone else

like that before. You left yourself open,

mixing phrases and letters

for worse or for better

‘till life does its part.

“Liebling, for you, I do.” But what should I do?

And what could I say—

Das ist gut.

emingway put a gun to his head.

Plath swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills—

Later, she placed her head in an oven.

With her pockets filled with stones,

Woolf walked by the riverside.

Sexton locked herself in her garage

and turned on the engine.

On the Washington Avenue Bridge, Berryman stood

and stood and stood and stood…

My poetry sucks

and I couldn’t be happier.

ll children will eventually

Become replicas of their parents:

Consumers of billboard allegories,

Denouncing their society for

Educating them without

Focusing on the importance of reality.

Goals used to be reserved for the

Headstrong. Now, they are available for

Idiots and Intellectuals alike (perhaps they are

Just one and the same). Do you remember when

Knowledge was so rare that people would follow around

Lazarus, asking questions about resurrection?

Most of them were of little faith, but liked the

Notion of a second chance.

Only children know that faith is deception with a

Purpose, but once they hit puberty, their

Quixotic whims dissolve into

Rigid views of Penthouse and Playboy.

“Society”

They cry, “is

Undermining my underpinnings!”

Virtual reality replaces fantasy

While parents listen to the whimpers of Generation

X; an entire era disintegrating.

Youth die beside keyboards, inside cubicles

and

Zephyrs carry memories of a past, consumed.

Now, the children of the madness beg for what

I am unable to explain.

Know thyself. Know thyself. Know thyself. No!

(My identity is trapped in a black box

And I cannot have it until after the crash.) The children

Believe, as they sometimes do, that there could be a revival of

Cultivation. They do not want to sit

Next to a stranger and be afraid to ask for the

Time. (Time is an invention to keep us from growing languid)

Won’t you please take a moment to watch this?

You are transforming into the one that you tried to resist.

Sing words to the hymn that you know so well:

“With the granite of New Hampshire” coagulating within

Me, you finish in muscles but without a brain.

ulce et decorum est pro patria mori

–Horace

The child, full of energy,

has nothing to do and nowhere to go

and so, is sent to camp.

At camp, he learns hygiene:

To be clean cut, to clean the machines,

to keep his record clean.

He travels outside to play in the sand

with shells and snipers and shrapnel.

After the season ends, he is allowed to come home.

Excited, he hasn’t slept in days.

He’s covered in medals. He carries awards.

He’s given a new title, a new name.

Father gives him praises.

Mother gives him kisses.

Son gives himself enough rope.