reflect

I am a writer.

I see the world in words;

varying shades of nuance blending into dog-eared notebook-film.

I speak in anecdotes and metaphors and hastily corrected grammar;

my swirling maelstrom of penmanship coalescing into verse and form.

I think in paratheses; disjointed words derailing my train of thought.

Then I go to school, just another teenager.

I sit in freezing rooms with flickering lights, forced to listen,

forced to answer by someone I do not know; the interrogation

of my childish mind, for a cause I understand but wish to escape.

I watch the news. I watch the news. I watch the news.

My fight is the fight for that infernal resumé, 

that infamous first letter, before (B)oy,

before (C)haracter, before (F)amily, (V)alues and definitely (L)ove.

I am constantly plagued by the fear of whether those students in the back

are dreaming up the next big hit on Comedy Central

or simply laughing at me.

My second language baffles me; symbols and strokes and lines in words,

fighting their horizontal arrangement in a kaleidioscope of black on white.

Or maybe I just suck.

Then I lose myself in introspection, I recall, I retell.

I paint out the souls of mice and men in letters;

sculpting things just as they seem - and more.

I am a gatekeeper of the unbounded.

I am a writer.

oh, for the freedom to fly;

this liberty with wings.