Things You Can't Google: a collaborative poetry experiment

On Instagram, I asked people to send me examples of “things you can’t google” to be used in a poem by the same name. ⁣I took all the answers, added a few of my own, and spent time arranging them into one poem. ⁣

Except for a few tiny tweaks that I made to help things flow a bit better, I kept submissions exactly as they came in. Each new person's answer comes after a forward slash (/) or line break. There were twenty contributors in total, including me. 

I'm so pleased with the final product. I hope you like it!  
~fara 

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Photo by Nathana Rebouças on Unsplash

Things You Can’t Google 
      (a collaborative poetry experiment)

how to fall in love / what does love feel like 
how loud the cicadas were when we kissed  
the word for that feeling 

you get when you stand in a room 
for the last time / was that the last time 
I’ll see my friend / when is my last day  
           will this turn out ok 

the salary range for this job / the toy I had as a child 
the most authentic expression of who 
you are / the song that was playing 
the night you realized that like it or not, 
         he had your whole heart

the sweet smell of a wildflower garden / the smell 
of my dog’s paws/ the smell of my motherland 

why I answered the door Friday night  
why I couldn’t trust what I felt  
why I always found a reason 
to hold his arm / the way I ache 
for memories I never made  

where the hell my favorite shirt went / where I lost 
my engagement ring on my 30th birthday 
the way his arm felt around me / where do I find 
the things I shouldn’t have let go 

my grandmother’s recipe for latkes / their anniversary, 
long after they’ve passed and all memory has faded 

does it get better does it get worse / when 
you’ll finally understand and believe that 
           you’re not crazy, but injured

how to get the courage to say how you feel 
how to make her understand / how to know 
when it’s time to leave / how to breathe 
through it when 
           the grief is a ton of bricks sitting on my chest 

who you will fall in love with / do they really love me 
will she come back / how long it will hurt / what it feels like 

                                 to stand at the edge of the ocean 
                                 as the sun falls from the sky. 
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View the original poem on instagram and see all the people who contributed words to the project.