The Next Mona Lisa
When I was in the third grade,
My teacher told our class to write a poem.
This wasn’t a good idea.
Our knowledge of poetry was limited to Dr. Seuss rhymes,
Illustrated anthologies locked in Mother’s bookshelves.
It was a lot like giving a kindergartener a paintbrush
Then telling them to go paint the Mona Lisa.
We didn’t know where to start.
That particular poem wasn’t amazing,
And I knew deep down that I would never be a poet.
But the years kept coming,
Day and night
And I was assigned
More to write
And gradually,
Kicking and screaming,
Almost as if
I was dreaming
I learned what made a poem
A poem.
I learned how to write one well
And I learned that rhymes don’t magically make things stronger.
I learned poetry is more than words splattered on a paper to get a grade.
I learned that in a poem,
The words that are left unsaid
Are the words that say the most.
I learned poems are like onions -
The closer you look, the more layers you see
And I learned that just like onions,
The best poems are the ones that,
If you dare to look deep enough,
Are so strong they make you cry.
It’s not that I want to make people cry.
But I really like onions.
And poems cut through the clutter of sentences
To the vivid pictures
Where you’re free to create your own story.
And I want to create my own story.
The human mind looks for patterns.
And one day, I looked outside and I saw a bubble,
And I thought, ‘Wow, it’s so shiny, so self-confident,
But give it a bit of pressure and it explodes in your hand’
And then I thought, ‘Wow, that’s like a lot of people.’
And voila, a poem was born.
Now, sometimes, my poems are like words splattered on a page.
But like a Jackson Pollock, every word has a purpose
I may never write the Mona Lisa,
But I can still create art.
I can create something worth seeing.
I can create something worth doing.
And this is why I write.