When I decided to write this spoken word,
My thoughts were
As dormant as on an exam day.
The result:
Essays with no conclusion and no introduction.
What stood in front of me was my life,
Behind me the clock
Ticking
The muscle wedged between my ribs was
Banging into me so aggressively.
Anxiety
Was the perfect fire
To create the burning in my lungs.
I couldn’t breathe.
No.
That’s not true.
That’s not accurate.
Because
My chest was rising
As high as the praises sung for me
From my enemies and friends and from people who just see.
Apparently,
I speak so well
And write so good
I mean
I write so well
To them I have no struggle.
To no one I can my struggle tell.
When my thoughts did begin to play,
They were
A buffering song
Incomplete ideas,
Threatening Melodies,
But nothing I could dance to.
Nothing I could even hum.
Still, I hear.
I know they’re there.
In these unfinished melodies
Are Echo’s cries.
When I eventually start to write,
The echo of every line is
“Love me. Love me. Love me.”
In the end,
I write and say what I should.
So, even in my spoken word
My words are unspoken.
Spoken my unspoken words would make me vulnerable,
I cannot be hurt.
I cannot be broken.
My unspoken words must remain unspoken.
They think
I am invincible.
They think
I am unshakeable.
If only I was
Old Ye’ Faithful.
A volcano that knows
How to let at least a little go
at a time.
Instead,
I am that volcano in Pompeii.
My eruption
Waiting until the pressure
Overwhelms.
My unspoken words
boiling within.
I don’t want these words
Darkening and covering
That perfect perception
Of me.
Yet,
I can feel these words
Rumbling, working their way to the crater
That is my mouth.
Hiding behind metaphors and a beat
I don’t want to admit my heat:
Pain, anger, disappointment,
Failure.
I want them to
“Love me. Love me. Love me.”
Love me
As they have done the bloodline before me.
Their successes
Like the Appalachian mountains
Drawing people to them,
Standing triumphantly,
Calm and unmovable.
But I
I am the volcano.
I only mimic the mountains in my outside appearance
But inside me,
There is lava
The unspoken words
Flowing.
May all of my cries
Remain dormant
Except
In this one moment
When my unspoken words Became spoken.
Corene Scotland, a junior at PPCHS, won first place for “The Unspoken Words” in the 2022-23 Broward County Literary Fair. She started writing poetry after discovering its powerful qualities in her pre-teenage years. It was a way for her to truly understand and process her thoughts and emotions without them becoming overwhelming. Poems are the diary she can share with others. This poem specifically focuses on her worries and doubts concerning the fantasies of love.
the atala is designed, curated, & edited by the Pines Charter Chapter of the National English Honor Society. It showcases original student poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, literary criticism, and art. Like its namesake — the small, bright butterfly that grew from near extinction to rising numbers in our part of the world — this little literary journal aims to grow our love of writing and expand our community’s appreciation for the literary arts.
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