Nobody Special Poet Free verse

The Middle of the Divide

The school bell is ringing but nobody moves yet
Trapped in the hallway between classes and years
My childhood is packed up inside my locker
While high school is waiting past the heavy doors

We split up the cafeteria tables like borders
Choosing our sides by the clothes that we wear
I stand in the middle with my lunch tray shaking
Halfway between who I was and who I will be

My old best friend passes and looks through my shoulder
Like I am a ghost from a grade she forgot
How fast does a memory turn into a stranger
Leaving you lonely in an overcrowded room?

If we spent our whole lives just cutting things smaller
To figure out where we belong in the math
What is left of the person we started out being
And who pays the price for the pieces we lost?

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Alison A Smith October 1, 2026 at 6:00 PM A deeply affecting free-verse poem that captures the fragile in-between of adolescence with clarity and restraint. The divide becomes both a physical school hallway and an emotional border, while images such as the packed locker, cafeteria “sides,” and the shaking lunch tray make the loneliness feel immediate and lived-in. The final stanza broadens that private hurt into a thoughtful question about identity, belonging, and what division costs us.

Gershon Wolf September 30, 2026 at 8:52 PM "Halfway between who I was and who I will be." -- Wow! And this is just one of several memorable lines in this poem, which has really got me thinking... all the way to back to those incredibly insecure, confused high school daze. Thanks, Gershon