In Which I Slap Reading Material in Your Face

Hi guys! I just got done writing a research paper and I'm not tired at all!

*Twitch*

Anyway, I realized with much horror that I still have a lot of work to get done today, but I know I must post something because it is my day. My day, I tell you! So first, here is a picture of a picture of a grapefruit I drew on because I was growing desperate from staring at my computer screen writing about the Civil War all day.

Yes, I know, it's beautiful. I like to sharpee on things. Except shoes. I mean, why would you buy an expensive pair of shoes just to scribble all over them? Buy a cheap pair of shoes and do it, you snobby rich person.

*cough*

Lessee. . . oh yes! I'm going to share a poem I wrote with you guys. Some of you may have read it before, but then there are people who haven't read it. This is for them.

AUDIENCE: I didn't know you were a poet, Esther!

Oh, I'm not Belmonte, but I try occasionally. Poetry is definitely not my genre. My thoughts are too scattered and vague to fit into a few succinct lines. But here is a poem titled, "Writ on The Eve of My 18th Birthday".

AUDIENCE: I thought you were seventeen!

I am, I am! I'm looking into the FUTURE! I am magical!

It was actually an assignment for school. I was supposed to write an introspective poem about myself, and it came out okay. Here it is!
__

Writ on the Eve of My 18th Birthday
It is the eve of my eighteenth birthday.
             You cannot call me a child.
 I cannot call myself an adult.
Every day I look in the mirror to see if something’s different
and instead I see the same face unchanged since
I was ten:
Cheeks plump
 like fresh yeast rolls
My eyes reflecting every emotion I feel
I notice creases that will deepen as I age and
I know I’ll wear them like a badge of honor.
Sixty years from now
I challenge you with my skin like a crumpled blanket
to tell me that I have not lived.
It is the eve of my eighteenth birthday
and I am sitting
            waiting
                thinking about how my life will unravel
I’m the cliff in the face of the storm and
who knows how the water and wind
will erode me.
Terrified to think about it
Too many ifs and whys and too many questions--
Too many!
I don’t want to think what the answers will be.
Give me a machine that will coat
time with ice.
Give me a precious moment so
I can stop working for the future
I want to breathe for a second and stop worrying.
My friends say I’m smart, that I’ll do “well”.
I just can’t stop thinking about
my inevitable failures.
I’ll just have to tell myself that failure is
a stranger you should meet
but not embrace and
just keep my stride, past the ruins
of defeat.
18 years and I haven’t been in love.
The fact is like an itch on the back of my neck
I go for days without thinking about it
but then something makes me itch again.
But I won’t scratch
No scratching!
12-year old girls tell me that it’s weird that I haven’t
kissed a boy or held hands.
Ha:
I think it’s weird that that same girl says she’s Juliet and he’s Romeo
and she can’t say “I love you” and mean it.
Star cross’d lovers? Forsooth, I think not. I will persevere.
I will wait until I can love for the sake of loving
instead of loving for the sake of appearing to love.
There’s a difference
I know it.
But still, sometimes I wish a boy would walk by
me and take a second look because I
want to be worth seeing.
I am not immune to the hypocrisy of youth.
18 years and still know so little
 I have learned much
but what I know is the beam of the flashlight
in a dark room.
I still have much to observe and hear and breathe in
I’m excited and terrified and wary
but I’ll keep moving and succeed because
others have done so with less.
I have much more than I see tangible
(you do, too)
I’ll jump on my airship
and fly past the sky and the Milkyway
and become myself.
It is the eve of my eighteenth birthday.
I’m terrified,
          I am naïve,
                  I am shaken
   and I’m ready.

_____

There is a little chunk of my guts, right there are the page. I hope you enjoyed my guts. Perhaps you even savored them. Thanks for reading this decidedly short post! Hannah and her wonder will make up for me.
Hannah is my friend.

May all your children be fruitful,

Esther P.