Voice
A poem.
For my mind is a messy, chaotic poem
That lacks gallant beginnings and owns no retouched verses.
My mind’s not edgy, yet its edges are ripped, oh,
My mind is an unframed masterpiece in a New York museum.
My mind roars as it was deep within a jungle, screaming yes,
Yet it’s shut up!… as it encounters my voice whispering no…
For my voice is insecure, so it dares to get lost;
It loses itself in the hangovers I go through every even Saturday;
It loses itself at that boy’s gaze, which I’m too afraid to look at;
It loses itself when I follow somebody else’s previous words;
It loses itself in the lines of the essay I have to turn at 11:59 tonight, or else,
My voice is graded.
My voice is analyzed, it’s justified, it is judged.
It gets a B minus, or even an F, but never an A,
So my voice hides in the cheer of a hallway crowd.
For my voice is naive and young, therefore, wrong,
As there’s no bigger tragedy for a poem mind than to be imprisoned by a fallen-asleep voice.
So I force my mind to be strong enough to pull my voice up, and (oh, boy!), it rises;
It rises itself for the strength to stop drinking;
It rises itself for the nerve to look at that boy again;
It rises itself for enough stamina to say my own words;
It rises itself for boldness to be more than a scaled grade.
Oh, boy, does it rise!
As if I stopped to carry a mountain with the lightness of river flow,
And as I cease to mourn the heaviness of a dead voice.
No, my voice is powerful,
For my mind is a messy, chaotic, beautiful poem.
by Eduardo Aguirre