really bad poetry

As I was cleaning out some of my old stuff, I came across some poems that I had written during 8th grade and my freshman and year of high school.  If I remember correctly, my friends seemed to like my poems and, since I had two notebooks full of it, I guess I liked them as well.

Um, they suck.

Let me give you an example from 8th grade:

The Love That Slipped Away
I decided to take a walk today
To think of the love that slipped away.
The dreams I've had almost came true,
I came so close to having you.
If I had just a little time
You could have really become mine.
But time came short, hope left my heart,
And now I'm left with it torn apart.
I wish I'd had more time with you
So all my dreams could have come true.
(At the bottom of the page, I drew a picture of a bleeding rose and crying eyes.)

Wow - true love in 8th grade!  I don't even know who I was writing about, but he must have been something else.  I think 70% of the poems I found have to do with the love who got away scenario.  And those rhymes!  I think I broke about twenty rules of poetry by using the same pair of rhyming words more than once (you and true).

Flash forward to my freshman year of high school.  High school students are almost adults...this should be twenty times better, right?

Wrong.

Dreamworld
Looking at him I see a light,
A light that guides me through the night.
Through my dreams while I'm asleep
Over hills and valleys much too steep
To climb them takes a helping hand
From someone you can understand.
He pulls you up and over the wall,
You know he'll never let you fall.
For he loves you much too much
To ever live without your touch.
You tell him that you feel the same,
And tremble when you hear his name.
He grabs you and he pulls you near.
This is when you have no fear.
You're only inches from his heart, and...
Then you wake and understand
That just for now it's in your head,
But someday you may be there instead.

*Insert facepalm here*

I guess I'm thankful that I didn't have some sort of drawing of a girl dreaming at the bottom, but it's not much consolation for the level of melodramatic sucktitude written on that page.

This came from a notebook with the word "Thoughts" written on the front by using my eraser to rub off the color.  About half of the pages are missing - I'm guessing they were used as paper for notes that were passed during study hall.  Other pages are covered in some assemblage of tiny drawings of things relating to cold study halls and broken hearts, peace symbols, and verses from New Kids on the Block songs.  Vomit.

Were we all like this back then or was it just me? And are girls that age the same now as we were back then?  If so, I'll just say I'm still extremely thankful I had a boy.