Lessons

I didn't always recognize the lessons poetry taught me. It was an assignment, a blasphemous and treacherous waste of time that could have been used doing anything else. I hated my poetry the most. It was verbose, deceptive, faux and shallow and I knew that everyone who read it would know it too. Know that I was verbose and deceptive and faux and shallow. My friends’ poetry isn't like that. It teaches me things.  One of my friends is afraid of being alone. I know because his poetry told me so. “Loneliness,” he wrote, “is a beautiful word.” And I knew he felt lonely. I knew my best friend was in love before she knew herself. “The sun is brighter today,” she wrote. “I think I am, too.” My childhood friend is depressed and anxious. He wrote of black holes, bottomless pits, a sky with no stars and a sea without ripples. “It's fantasy,” he said, but it kind of wasn't. Poetry even taught me something about myself. Taught my friends something about me. “My poetry is terrible,” I said, and one friend said, “You're better than you think.” “My poetry is terrible,” I said, and another friend said, “You think everything you do is terrible.” “My poetry is terrible,” I cried, not knowing if I wanted a confirmation or a denial. My best friend read my last poem, the one from middle school, the one about a bird that happened to have feathers the color of my hair and eyes the color of mine. It was trite and simplistic and flowery. “Your poetry is good,” she said, “But it could use practice.” She was right. Well, not about everything. It was bad.  But I could use some practice. So here I am. This is my practice. Everything from now on is my practice. And I hope someone can learn something maybe about me, maybe about the world, from my poetry too.  

This poem is about: 
Me
My community

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