Published 2017

Gentle, 

Gentle, 

In and out. 

Words. 

Words constrain me. 

OH the places you will go, 

OH the stories you will know, 

but it makes it hard to share…

…when the story can’t even get past your brain. 

When beautiful words embroider your mind, 

but the grayness of pen and paper seem too unholy to even contain, 

The greatness I retain.

When a novel hovers on your lips and lingers on your fingertips 

but the vapidness of typed words, 

   of block fonts, 

   of print,

seem too unworthy to even be a carrier of your words. 

So you hold them in. 

You stew them in your mind.

You wait. 

You wait until the words fade, 

until they become a memory, 

an aroma of something great that was once thought of but that cannot seem to be remembered now.

Until they become the subtle remnants of a delicious feast, 

a funny taste that teases you from the back of your throat. 

The one thing you cannot seem to remember. 

The one thing your short term memory cherished,

but your careless long term memory lost it in its many stacks of files. 

So, you wait again. 

Like a girl waiting for a boy to ask her to the next school dance.

You make that missing memory a pretty little room in your mind, like a parent waiting in an empty nest.

Like a dog, 

dreaming by the front door, 

waiting for the memory to come back. 

That memory, 

A budding flower that collapsed because you forgot to cultivate it.

That memory, 

Can it be saved?

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About DEEP

“We envision a Savannah where our young people and their families thrive as learners, community leaders, and artists; and we envision a community, a government, and institutions that hear, value, and respond to their voices with equity, justice, and care.” DEEP Center

I joined the DEEP Block by Block writing program as a sophomore in high school. It’s a community-based program for young writers that takes us around the city to interview locals and express the complex themes we absorb—about life, poverty, success, love, family, support, and more—through poetry. At the end of the program, our work was published in a full collection for the year. This piece depicts my daily struggle as a writer and artist, the pain of a story you hold inside but cannot transfer into words.