You tower over the doorway,
wavy blonde hair catching the harsh fluorescent glare
of the hallway outside the prep room.
Everyone parts for you—
you carry that old, easy popularity
like a jacket you never have to zip against the cold.
I am sitting two desks down,
drowning in a sea of manila folders and printed articles,
our thirty-minute prep clock ticking down to zero.
They say extempers have to think on their feet,
have to look a judge in the eye and command a room,
turn global chaos into a neat seven-minute argument.
So why does a single digital inbox
leave me completely paralyzed?
I sent the words weeks ago.
A confession typed out in the dark margins of midnight,
shoved through the mail slot of your attention,
and you just walked past me this morning
with those sharp blue eyes,
looking right through me to the whiteboard behind my head.
You don't even have to offer a rebuttal.
Your silence is a twenty-four-point font,
screaming louder than any speech I have ever given.
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?
HEY KID! CHECK THIS OUT!
Be you that
You are;
Adored and
Always wanted:
That’s why
You are here:-
You could
Have been aborted;
But love birth you from
The womb:-
And remember this,
Friends don’t make fools
Of their friends: joyfully
Laughing at them—
Think about it,
And be in awareness:-
DANCING BLIND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DANCE FLOOR
Bare footed on old linoleum floor
Tapestry music engage my ears (I hear the distance)
I see not but I’m placement mid-center
Of a space placed vivid vibrations flairs (I feel the emptiness)
I slowly spin around, I move to the music
Even in the darkness I’ve rhythm (I smell the panoramic)
My naked feet hear and feels the beat sweet
I can see n mine spirit I dance with the light
(I taste the air, I’ve inhaled, I sense the people stare) {I DANCE}
As my naked feet, legs, tortoise whole body sprite
moves as lighting-bugs in the night
Centered in movement dance steps bright
ViBrAtiOnS feels my steps are not sight
Dancing Without Sight
Contest Winner Medal 2nd Place
The missing letters are feared lost better calls shrieked into the mossy night where hovering the moon delights, in wolfish cries and another bursts the devil called and answered Ms. Hearst so while the nighttime day's mirror... cries are heard! They said that amber was a rock no more, for if serendipitously defined then hulking over the river is the divestment of the vines, but modern day America hasn't won the currency war, the Euro has it's place ensured, and though we wile through rows of corn our hearts aflutter as others mourn, be crisp beneath that blotted out apple tree, the asylum loves apple juice for free.
A HAIKU FOR YOU
Like garden flowers,
Be in glorious blossoms;
Scenting life with love:-
PECKING BIRDS
Woodpeckers don’t talk;
Yet, can run their mouths all day:
Just ask a tree:-
WHEN SPRING CAME
With spring, pollen came;
With pollen, the achoo came:
Juicy fruits came too:-
With fustigation to amelioration
We are led by The Law to The Gospel
And in turn The Gospel demands we keep The Law
No epistle of straw, there’s room in the hostel
(Because God’s style to the world is hostile)
We are led by the Spirit
To learn to endear it
Endear what? Is a sinful recitation
Learning to serve others in convocation
(God calls us and overhauls us
Whether one by one and together)
How do we inherit eternal life?
By loving our neighbor as serving kin
Who is our neighbor?
The one without (as in not having and not within)
The fustigation of Jesus Christ
Begs our amelioration of a fustigated life
And if a cruciform life is led
There must be blood, sweat and tears shed in stead
(Or instead of the evil in tow as is led here below)
Life is hard, there’s no doubt about it
Jesus’ words touted and shouted from the Cross
But serendipitously (and graciously)
When we lose, we don’t count it as loss
Are you willing to look like a hypocrite to the world without?
Are you willing to look at the hypocrite within?
(As He lived and then hung betwixt two of us)
Jesus took on this struggle without committing a sin
Poet's Note
Dr. Abdus Salam (1926-1996) was born in Jhang, Pakistan. He became the *first Pakistani and first Muslim to win the Nobel Prize in Science* in 1979. With hope and resilience, he showed the world that greatness can rise from humble beginnings.
Bite Size Contest no 151
Theme*: Hope & Resilience
Chalkboard Dream
Abdus Salam dreamed on a chalkboard
Dust and cracked shoes reached the sky
Storms of doubt, no hand to guide
Still he earned Nobel pride
For Pakistan, for Muslim light
Hope and resilience never die
-
'Tis I, the better man by far,
to put my finger in the cookie jar.
My only life, I chose to risk it
for a cookie or a biscuit,
as a madwoman in the house
places traps best meant for mouse.
A lesser man might linger
on a missing thumb or finger,
but a man like me (a macho brute)
celebrates a cookie, down the chute.
Meatloaf with hard boiled eggs in the middle
in the middle in the middle
Meatloaf with hard boiled eggs in the middle
in the middle in the middle
and ketchup on the table when it's done
when it's done
Dad made meatloaf but not like mom
hard boiled eggs in the middle stay mum
Slice it and yellow yolk with white egg ring
didn't look so right but let ketchup do it's thing
Mom's was better but nothing like dads
hard boiled eggs flavor mom's never had
Cooking new ways can make a mystery meal
as long as after eating your tummy okay feels.
Meatloaf with hard boiled eggs in the middle
in the middle in the middle
Meatloaf with hard boiled eggs in the middle
in the middle in the middle
and ketchup on the table when it's done
when it's done.
somebody order a pizza...
Smack in the middle
Of the road was a hawk.
Once the brakes were applied,
We just sat there to gawk.
It was standing astride
A dead squirrel, a meal
Which I guess to a hawk
Has a certain appeal.
Perhaps what it planned
Was to dig in and start,
But a bird of prey’s certainly
Cunning and smart.
So on seeing our car,
Talons did what they must
And that hawk flew away,
Leaving us in the dust.
We drove on to the store
To stock up on some food,
Glad that roadkill was not
On our list to include.
AVIAN RAINDROPS
Birds flew overhead,
Leaving wet droplets falling;
But they were not rain:-
OUCH: AN INSECT MOMENT
A fly flew past me,
A bumblebee chasing it:-
Ouch! An ant bit me!
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