15-Year-Old Regret is Laid To Rest: A Poem

So in middle school I had to write a metaphor poem. It is a pretty standard assignment for seventh grade English Language Arts class in my state as that is when you tend to focus on both metaphors and poems. I was obsessed with the poetry unit and moderately interested in the metaphors, so I genuinely wanted to do well. I wrote my poem and my teacher thought it was great. So great, in fact, he asked me to publish it in the school’s newsletter for all of the school to see. Unfortunately, I was too shy and declined and now I sit with a smidgen of regret that I was not confident enough in myself and my writing to share it with others.

As a teacher now, I think back on that moment I wonder how many missed opportunities my students will regret later in their life as well. Being an adult, I occasionally forget what it is like to be self-conscious. Sure, I am nervous about certain things or get embarrassed when I trip up over words while speaking in front of a class full of adolescents (I once ridiculously replaced the word “sacrum” for another similar word describing a part of the male’s genitalia while giving a lesson on the skeletal system. Thankfully my students didn’t notice and there we no awkward parent phone calls afterwards.) But I have become accustomed to making mistakes or being called out for being wrong about something that I appreciate being corrected and tend to not take it too personally. I mean I have much larger problems to solve like why my student keeps getting up out of his seat at the most inappropriate times. Doesn't he know I am teaching life-changing stuff over here, or that I am setting up for an activity where they get to walk around in less than three minutes? And yes, there's even bigger problems, like preparing them for a world, jobs, and problems that we can't even begin to imagine yet. That too, obviously.

My students do not have that luxury yet. They are still finding their place in the world and their own identity, as I was in middle school many years ago. So I know they are making decisions right now based on the world as they see it at this very moment. At that moment when my teacher asked me to share my poem to the school, the world as I saw it, I was afraid I would be judged or more likely made fun of for (maybe) being a decent writer. So today I am laying it all to rest; I am sharing my poem as best I can remember it from memory. If you have any ideas of lines to add to it, feel free to chime in. I can only remember the first few opening stanzas.

Am I still a decent writer? Possibly, but probably not as good as I could have been had I taken that small gesture of encouragement and ran it as far as I could. I still enjoyed writing throughout the rest of my school years, and do still now. Most recently Haikus have been my hobby. To me, they are like soduko puzzles with words. Try to fit your story in a 5-7-5 pattern and make it work; I found it isn’t as easy as I would think. I have trouble even staying within the 140 character minimum on Twitter when I decide to use it. Does that still exist? It's been awhile since I have been on. So this is for all of us that let our preoccupation with our image and how others view us limit our opportunities. Even if it doesn’t pan out in the long run we can say we gave it a shot and laugh at ourselves for being too damn optimistic later instead of wondering why we were too scared to take the chance.

The Ride (as I can remember it)

Buckle up your seatbelts
And Hold on Tight.
Something about this ride
Aint quite right.

There’s twist and turns,
Even Breaks and Burns,
And all along the way
There’ll be lessons learned.

There’s no going back
Or getting off once it starts.
This ride keeps running
During all the rough parts. (End)

The next couple of stanzas I know there was a line about keeping your hands and feet in at all times and something about how you can scream if you have to but it won’t always help and the main idea was just to enjoy the ride. The last stanza also repeated the first stanza because, well, repetition and it fit as a conclusion. Either way, it is out in the world now and I am no longer burdened by the “what if” in the recesses of my mind. Like I said, if any creative minds want to contribute a proper ending to my seventh grade metaphor poem just for kicks, I would love to read them. Thanks for reading and keep being awesome.

All pictures courtesy of Pixabay