Ms. Widman 11 & 12th Grade
October 19 2007
born a month and a half early
family now includes Brian, Aisling, David, Emily, Charlotte
my hair is cut into a bob with bangs
a haircut that will stay with me forever
I’m in elementary school now and I’m unsure
the girls look mean and math is hard
a few years pass and once again I
have a bob and bangs
only this time I”m wearing a mask
I feel cool
anxiety hits
I feel so uncool
I’m in high school now
anxiety lingers
the girls look nice and math is hard
maybe I am cool
October 19 2025 and I’m an adult
The soul of a camera
it will be both blessed and cursed
with a sense of hypervigilence
my camera lens won’t close
a very specific light dose
entering my field of view
inside is a painting of my mother grieving
holding a dead flower. Something familiar
yet so unhealing
she tells me not to leave her
thought it’s not up to me,
it’s up to my pervasive melancholy.
She tells me I am lucky,
but I loathe that,
I’d rather be blessed than be lucky.
But it’s foretold
like looking through a glass case seeing what could be.
This tarpit of an institution extinguishes my flame.
Even in a prison, beauty can be born
and born again is immolating passion;
the passion of the phoenix soars.
My decomposing body will be puppeteered once again
if you don’t see ignited skies in the near future
consider me dead.
In a hospital on a bed a small girl sitting there
too small too young for getting news that stabs her.
A life now chained, no joy, no freedom, stuck at home
seen as fine china ready to break. I look up
to see the endless sky, wanted to fly, but I was
chained, a curse given at birth, wings too tight
unable to flap them in the sky. I cry and cry. The sky
was high and I was in the ground. I will not stay
here chained. Work and work till I can’t move
no more, but I shall not give up. I won’t give up.
I will fly.
Seasons changed; I’m older now.
The chain is still there but light then stuck
in a tree is a ball. I can fly. It’s hard but I
can fly. I may not be high but I am in the sky.
I will keep training till I can fly high
in the endless sky.