but I thought about the feelings without words,
somehow lost along the way,
screaming, bleeding, feeling
without the words that would explain what the feeling was
rolling around under my skin.
I think about the waves those feelings come in,
the words still lost at sea
and I wonder what should happen once the waves hit the shore
that is my tongue
How should the emotion fall out of my mouth
when the words dance, mocking me, on the horizon?
The feelings curl up with me on the shore
wet and cold and numb
as I reach for them, but they do not come
The words laugh at me when they see me still sitting there,
curled up with my feelings on the shore
In the dark
Because I still feel them, I just can’t explain them
Charles Simic thought, ‘Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them,’
but I thought about what happened
behind those closed doors
when the writer held the pen to the paper
and the words were the experience.
I think about how much of poetry is
for the poet rather than the audience
because the words on the paper were parts of a soul,
a thought turned ink or led.
The silence was always the comfort
to the feelings behind
the words in my head.
I had thought that it was rational
with how calm the dead were
and how soft rest was
and how peaceful the quiet
had always felt.
Because I had always felt that, too.
George Shaw thought, ‘Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself,’
but I thought about how much of myself
I had to find in the dirt
left behind in the trails that I crossed over
in search for my own.
I thought about how finding something
did not mean I would keep it.
I thought life was about learning
to live,
or was I simply struggling?
It hadn’t been too long ago
when I hadn’t wanted to live at all
when I had no interest in taking the
next breath
let alone interest in taking
the time to look into myself.
Douglas Adams thought, ‘Life is wasted on the living,’
but I thought about the living
and the lives they were leading
and the life I was trying to live
and I could not consider it a waste.
I thought about the story that was
the life I was writing, reading, wondering about
and I could see the worth
in the life I was living.
I thought about the times I thought my life was a waste
and I thought about the reminders that
it was not
that came after.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought, ‘The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to it children,’
but I thought about the world left to me.
I thought about the world I
walk the children clinging
to me
through
and the adults letting go of my hands
as I trudged through the chaos
that was the world
dumped in front of me.
I thought about the God made mess
that is the world
and wondered at the
morals in the society
I had hated since my first day
of second grade.
I thought about the work
I was putting in
to clear a path for those I kept behind me
and the way I failed miserably
only to look back and see them
falling far enough behind
for me to go back and pull them through.
I think ‘silver lining’ is actually gold
because of how well it blends into the dark.
I think my mental health is shredded tatters,
burning in a fire I ignore.
I think I gave up being a child so long ago
I don’t remember when I ever was.
I know I want the rest promised in Matthew 11:28.
I know music, literature, philosophy and art
are very loved parts of my soul.
I know God loves me
I just struggle to love myself.
I think I’m paradoxical
I think I’m meant to be that way.
I think my name is meaningless in comparison
to my soul and the thoughts I spilled
onto this page,
but it is tradition to sign art.
--Kylie P., 9th-12th Grade