A Poem

I think

Are you done?

Still thinking.

I need to know!

It’s ok.

But…!

Chill.

No!

I need time.

I gave you time!

But you didn’t.

I did!

Give me more time

Okay…

Pause.

Are you done yet?

Time!

You said you would give me time!

I did.

You still have time.

Then why are you still talking to me?

Done yet?

Leave me alone.

No.

But I need to know.

This would be quicker if you would just give me some space.

Are you there?

Hello?

Ready yet?

You don’t understand!!

I don’t understand?

Yes I do.

I understand that I’m so tired I can barely move.

I can barely write.

Barely turn the pages

Barely talk.

Hello??

It’s just that I’m getting nervous!!

I’m nervous too.

But you don’t see that.

You don’t see me

Falling asleep over math homework

Then failing the quiz the next day.

You don’t see me

Trying so hard

So hard

Too hard

To succeed.

You don’t see me

Trying to change

Become a better person

Inside and out.

You just want to know.

But I don’t know

I can’t think

when you’re talking to me

Done yet?

You think I don’t understand

This is getting stressful.

Just make a decision

ASAP

But I do

I understand stress.

I understand.

Trying to decipher your messages

Makes it worse.

Not in English

Not even close

FAIL!

You think it’s funny.

I think it’s annoying.

You’re a writer.

But you don’t act like one.

I don’t get it.

I try to understand

But you don’t understand

I understand how hard this is for you.

You don’t even try to understand.

You don’t think about what this is like for me

People are asking me about it!

You don’t give me a chance to explain.

I’m sick of being a nerd.

But you embrace it

You love it

That one difference

Caused everything.

I want to feel like a normal kid.

For the first time in my life

I want to feel special

But in a normal kid kind of way.

You want something totally different.

I want to help you.

But I want to help myself.

I want it

I want everything

All at the same time.

But I can’t have everything.

The whole world grabs me

and pulls me back.

And you help.

My remarkable lack of artistic ability.

I'm a sophomore. My friends and I have a whole set of teachers that we had last year who (of course) still love us. A few months ago, a bunch of my friends and I went to our favorite former teacher's class and played "Vocab Challenge" with his frosh. We sophomores ended up winning (of course), but playing the game only served to remind me that the amount of time I had left before the SATs was getting smaller and smaller. And, oddly enough, I missed doing vocab each week.

Afew few weeks later, two other friends and I went back to his class and listened to him read part of a story by David Sedaris to his class. Afterwards, as we complained about our current teachers, he offered to provide us with some vocab words we could study from.

We said yes.

Don't get me wrong, I still think learning new words is cool. And most of the time I'm able to look more into the future, and remember that these words will come in handy. But I still find myself resisting when I dutifully sit down at my desk and open up my dictionary. I tell myself You don't have to do this! Why are you??? But then I remember the SATs. I remember reading articles so full of big words that they may as well be in Greek. And then, after a few cards, I start to think.

This isn't so bad, I say to myself. Besides, it'll help me a lot in the long run. And that's about when it usually hits me. Just because I don't enjoy doing something doesn't necessarily mean I want to do it. Just because it seems unimportant doesn't mean it won't help me or others in the long term. And finally, I realize that maybe the real purpose of the vocab cards wasn't to teach me the words. It was to get me to realize these things.

Always Learning, indeed.

P.S. I hid a vocab word from last year in the blog post!