One Day

Textbooks and teachers told me “Hold on to everything; Everything you write - It will turn into something one day” And one day became overturned boxes Tossed around my room, And pages of white, off-white, something in between With scribbles in black, blue, red Big, small, tear-blotched, ripped Written in every direction, let me cover every inch Like the lover from Italy that has a wife back home And it breaks your heart more than hers Because your fantasy just shattered And her mirror has been cracked for ages. You thought these pages Might mean something one day But as you look over teenage angst You think, “Child, someone needed to teach you strength.”