Things (a poem)

I have this list on my phone called
"Things."

It's mostly song titles and book titles,
YouTube links, articles,
ice cream flavors I want to try,
quotes,
phrases.
Stuff I jot down at work or school
or when I'm out to eat.
Stuff I've just got to remember.

I guess lists like this are typically
meant for journals but
my moleskine doesn't exactly fit
in my back pocket.

I like a lot of things.
Maybe that's my problem.

You see, I've assigned
some sort of romanticism to these
iPhone keystrokes,
to each thing in my list of things,
because it always feels
necessary and productive
at the time
and I am a sentimental
creature by nature
and a creature of habit at that.

Ironically enough,
this poem started out
in my notes app
where my list of things resides,
taking up at least
four good thumb swipes
of space.

It felt necessary and productive
to write this,
to write something about me,
because it's always about you, you, you
or them, them, them,
and so I am up writing this
as a summer storm manifests outside
my window, dark clouds toiling,
lightning illuminating
the photos on my bulletin board
every few minutes or so.
I am up feeling poetic
while you sleep with the rest of suburbia
in your twin-sized bed
and I,
with my king-sized range
of emotions,
am up
documenting everything I will miss
about this room and these walls
and summer storms.

I probably shouldn't watch slam poetry
before going to bed anymore.
It gets me too fired up.

But I was thinking
about a lot of things
and how exciting it is to be sitting
on this precipice of young adulthood.

Exciting that next year I'll live in a
district and not a state
and I can go see shows in the city.

But then I started thinking about me,
braving the metro alone,
and how I'll try to feel independent
and capable
while really still feeling rather small--
the collection of pins on my backpack
will suddenly seem childish instead of
eclectic and cool
and I'll shrink against the orange plastic seat
and want to go back to my dorm
and watch Harry Potter in bed.

And you know, I'm sure
some nights will be like that.

Others,
I'll embrace the cityscape
with wide open arms,
answering the calls of its
encyclopedic temptations
with a torrid vigor
for life and adventure and
everything.

Maybe I'll go to a party
and start a game of
Cards Against Humanity
and talk to someone about music
and at the end of the night
I'll text my mom
and tell her I miss her
and in the morning I'll text you
and tell you I miss you too.

I need to be catapulted into
an encomium of new chaos
in order to feel comfortable again.

I need something completely different.

That's not to say I won't keep
adding to my list of things.

Lists like that are important
so I don't forget what song
was playing when you drove me home
or the book title that my coworker
recommended to me or
the fact that I really, really, really
need to try Ben and Jerry's
Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch ice cream
(why is it so impossible
to find in stores?).

I like a lot of things.
That's my problem.