Poem by Lauren Castaldi

Conflict of Interest

I’m looking at pink purple and white stripes in my bed sheets.

She got mad at me for saying when I look at her I could throw up.
Who could blame her?

Margarine is one molecule away from plastic; no animals will go near it.
Why don’t humans just eat butter?

He’s ignoring my phone calls.

Your most important organ is your heart, so protect it.

This is the first time I’ve had a conversation with another boy that made me smile in a while.

Teenagers’ diets make our joints and muscles highly inflammatory.
Sugar equals sore body.

Love is sweet but self‐destructive. Kind of like sugar…

The same woman behind me in line for tickets was behind me in the bathroom.
She didn’t notice.

I saw him at church with his lame new girl.
Seriously, I could throw up.

Dolphins are the only other animals that have sex for pleasure.

All others simply are pro‐creating. Sometimes I feel like humans are the stupid ones in
the animal kingdom.

Do you think alligators ever suffer a broken heart?
I think not.

If I could take back the time I was with him I wouldn’t.

If I could take back the trip I brought him on where he met his new love,
Hmm. I wouldn’t.

I went to see a show in New York on a day so cold my fingers might have been bleeding, but
just warm enough that cold rain poured down.

That’s my favorite weather, the kind that leaves you numb but fresh.

I wonder if the people in foreign language texts know their faces get drawn into
the opposite sex.

Do people in Mexico say hello in Spanish conversation as we say hola?

Today was the first day I got butterflies in my stomach at the sight of someone since him.

A feeling long overdue.

In sports you shove the opponent to the ground and don’t say sorry, but at the end of the game
you’re expected to shake their hand.

Always be sportsmanlike when dirty play is involved.

Dancing is expressing the meaning of music in your interpretation of it.

Words are easier said than done.

Forever has different meanings for guys and girls.

Guys define it as, “Forever until I meet my next girl.”
Girls are devastated when they find out the hypocrisy of the male definition.

I don’t regret hurting her
He doesn’t think twice about hurting me

A boy foreign to my thoughts is now racing through them.

I have to make my bed.

[This poem was read by Frank McCourt at the ASAP Celebration of Young Writers, May 16, 2009, at the Town Hall of Washington, CT. Lauren's work is also in this year's issues of the English Journal and the Stray Shot.]