Free Verse Poem

Poem 1: Max and Kam's class

I can hear people learning

I can hear collaborative 

voices

talking with each other.

Wondering

Answering 

Questioning

I can hear people learning,

pencils scratching

feet stomping

heads wondering.

I can hear people learning.

Poem 2: The Lobby

I keep drifting off

flashing back.

Back to me,

a four year old.

Hand in hand 

with my parents.

Walking in,

looking.

Seeing stairs leading

up to the unknown.

Seeing two hallways. 

Seeing the art room

I desperately wanted 

to explore.

Being lead 

down

the blue hallway 

to one of the 

best days of my life.

Back to me,

six years old.

Walking in with my parents

To a new hallway

that was hidden 

behind the stairs.

Back to the day

that I was terrified. 

Going upstairs for the

very

first

time.

I looked down the hallways,

to the front desk 

for a helpful smile

that I then received.

I embarked up the stairs,

no longer going back.

I am going forward. 

Poem 3: Library

I feel a piece of hard wood

right below my shoulder blades

directly on my spine.

My feet and head lean 

against a rainbow 

of book spines.

I sit on rough carpet 

the color people call grape.

I don't know why.

No grapes are the color

grape.

Above me,  the ceiling.

A house to

two lights.

I hid here. 

When I was small,

I liked the way the 

books made me feel.

They made me feel calm, safe.

I hid from all my worries.

I hid from the stress and newness

of the upstairs.

I was hidden between the

book shelves.

Maybe I just wanted to be read.