SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

The following poem (source unknown) was given to a teacher by a twelfth grader.  Although it is not known if he wrote the poem, it is known that he committed suicide a few weeks later.

He always wanted to explain things, but no one cared.

Sometimes he would draw and it wasn’t anything.

He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky.

He would lie out in the grass and look up in the sky

And it would only be him and the sky and the things

Inside him that needed saying.

And it was after that he drew the picture.

He kept it under his pillow and would let no one see it.

And he would look at it every night and think about it.

And when it was dark, and his eyes were closed, he could

Still see it.

And it was all of him. And he loved it.

When he started school he brought it with him.

Not to show to anyone, but just to have it with him like a friend.

It was funny about school.

He sat in a square, brown desk

Like all other square, brown desks.

And he thought it should be red.

And his room was a square, brown room

Like all the other rooms.

And it was tight and close. And stiff.

He hated to hold the pencil and chalk.

With his arm stiff and his feet flat on the floor, stiff.

With the teacher watching and watching.

The teacher came and spoke to him.

She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys.

He said he didn’t like them.

And she said it didn’t matter.

After that they drew.

And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about morning.

And it was beautiful.

The teacher came and smiled at him.

“What’s this?” she said. “Why don’t you draw like Ken’s drawing?

Isn’t that beautiful?”

After that his mother bought him a tie.

And he always drew airplanes and rocket ships like everyone else.

And he threw the old picture away.

And when he lay alone looking at the sky,

It was big and blue and all of everything,

But he wasn’t anymore.

He was square inside, and brown,

And his hands were stiff.

And he was like everyone else.

And the things inside him that needed saying didn’t need it anymore

It had stopped pushing.

It was crushed.

Stiff.

Like everything else.