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:-
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:-
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
-
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!
A WATER WEBBING CONCERT
Went down to the lake.
The air was filled with quacking:
Such peaceful streaming:-
TRUTH FOR EVERMORE
You can’t hold down truth.
It is like the setting sun:
It's always rising:-
SHELLED DOVE
Years after her birth,
She returns to her birth-shores:
Shelling her own eggs:-
OF YENS AND YANGS
Yening and yanging;
Juxtaposition face-offs:
Lies and truths at odds:-
OF HISTORY AND OURSTORY AGAIN
Not much needs saying.
History tells many lies:
Ourstory speaks the truth.
Middle School Categories
Definition | What is Middle School in Poetry?
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