The Oboe

I didn't know

Much about music until I

Was twelve

And I heard the cacophony

Of amateurs pouring out of the front door

To the band room

I didn't expect ten flutes

In a band of twenty

Twelve year olds

But it was a pretty sound

So I chose it anyway

Because I liked the idea

Of being pretty

Then my father

Told me about the oboe

It’s a strange instrument

Onyx and silver, like a clarinet

But thinner, like a flute

With a double reed

And a little bell

At the bottom

Though its sound was something else:

It squawked like a duck

And rose above the twenty sounds

Like a six footer in a crowd

Of middle schoolers

I was the shortest in the class

Until I chose to play the oboe

And I became the six foot giant

I stuttered, I squawked

While the flutes

Played in delicate solis

And the oboe was named hobo

Amid the snickers

Of the trumpets

And the underhand jokes

Of the saxophones

Stranger still

That I kept playing that oboe

I was different, you know?

I took the plunge

Into an icy depth

That watered my sense

Of six foot individuality

Today I still

Play the oboe

And I could say that music

Is all I need

But that is not all

For my sense of me

Is also important

I am not the

Immaturity of seventh graders

I am not the

Sound of a flat note

But they have

Sculpted me into

A stream of sunlight

That grew from the darkness

Of a soul wanting to be different

And that is all I need

In a world that struggles

Against the slippery chains

Of conformity

I am an oboe

Among a world of flutes

And that is good enough

That is all I need