Poetry of You
It’s late at night, and I’m sitting on my bed with my mother brainstorming ideas for my Language Arts 9 poem assignment. Nothing seems to click.
I’m in the midst of my first of many depressive episodes, so I settle with a somber theme of how the world was making me feel. This is the first poem I wrote in high school, titled “A Tint of Gray.” While I didn’t present it, since at the time my anxiety controlled me more than I controlled it, and I still commemorate it deep within my heart.
That same boy, now seventeen, has won two gold medals in Forensics for the very same form of art. I pin that change to the beautiful metamorphosis I underwent the last three years.
My arrival to the SHS Forensics team is a rather silly story. It started out my freshman year, where my two best friends and I considered checking it out after a teacher suggested it. We showed up to the very first practice, but I dropped it soon after.
However, the next year, I went to grab an information sheet for my friend who stayed in it, but upon reading it, I found out there was a poetry category.
A few months earlier, I had rediscovered my account on the website Tumblr, and started using it occasionally until I got an idea. The many feelings I had—from the friendships I navigated to that damned cyclical depression—were artistic. The things we do and experience as people will always hold so much value, and there’s no better way to translate that than into raw, emotional art.
That same Tumblr blog became an archive for the poetry of me.
So, the anxious boy steps back into the Forensics room the very next practice, and starts brainstorming. With some mentoring from the coaches and a senior at the time, I began crafting my very first full-length poem titled “Minimum Wage Hero’s Journey.” This became the first poem of mine I presented out-loud, and would be far from my last.
I made it to Forensics state that same year, with many more poems under my belt, and stepped up as it was my turn to speak. Somehow, the boy who was anxious now naturally narrates his solemn story of not knowing who he is inside.
Even after winning a gold medal for a newfound passion, though, life always found a way to pull me apart.
Family fights left invisible bruises. Relationships and breakups disconnected me from reality. I failed tests and envied who I couldn’t be. But no matter how terrible—how heartbreaking—life could be to me, I still showed up. I sat down in front of my shoddy computer and typed away. This artist never misses an opportunity to illustrate.
In a way, I could say poetry saved me many times when I needed it most. My poems know me like nobody else does, even as the meanings often hide behind complex metaphors or symbols that project my mind. It can help you, even just a little, on the worst of days and in the midst of tragedy.
And it can help you too. If there’s one piece of advice I can give, it’s to channel the poetry—or just the art—of you. Maybe, just maybe, the tints of gray we all feel will begin to fade a little faster.
Roses:
Poetry
Every teacher I’ve had
Goofing off
All of my friends
Thorns:
Horse jokes
Procrastination
Pessimism
Drive-Thrus
