The Silence Says it All:Chapter One

Roses are red, violets are blue, and do I have a story for you. Words can roll off the tongue, and off the paper. They can define who we are, and what we’ll become. When it comes to poetry though, it is a lost art to the average teen. But with the scribbling of a pen, words can make an impact on the person you thought you were, and it can leave scriptures on your soul. They can leave scars on your heart, and make you spiral into someone you’re not. Words are the revolution of personality. Words are who you are.
Change would begin one day back in the eighth grade. The class just took a seat when the bell rang for fourth period. I slumped in my seat as I tried to prepare myself for what I thought was supposed to be another boring class of English. I readied my text book, waiting for Mrs. Simon to tell us the page number to open to, but instead, I saw her holding a stack of paper. She passed them out to everyone, and said, “Ok guys, today we are starting a new unit. The unit is on-“I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the sentence, because by looking down at the paper, I could already tell what it was on. Poetry.


I heard a small groan come from someone in the room, and I could tell from the others faces that they were not going to like this unit either, nor would I. She told us to look at the paper she gave to us. I looked down and saw that it was a lyrics sheet. The song was “Eve of Destruction”, by Barry McGuire. We were told to read through it, and tell her what we thought of it. I looked through it all, and discovered the lyrics to be very intense and meaningful, but I still didn’t think much of poems. I even started to doodle on the sheet of lyrics, almost insulting Barry. Finally, after what seemed like ages, Mrs. Simon said, “What the singer was trying to say was the down side to war and socialism, which means he was stating his opinion.” I didn’t pay much attention towards her, but the next thing I heard was what got my attention, “The assignment is to write a poem. Pure and simple” My eyes lit up. I couldn’t describe why, but they did.
While everyone else was talking to their friends, I was sitting back with a blank page and a pencil. I was trying to think of a topic, when Marty Wessels walked up to me. He asked, “What are you up to AJ?” Well, I wasn’t about to tell him I was working on the poem, at least, no in a serious tone. So I replied, “Just writing a poem Marty.” Then he just had to ask, “About what?” “Um..,” I tried to think of something completely random, then I got it, “Chuck Norris!” He laughed an asked to see it. “Come back in 5 minutes.” And that was what one of my first poems was on; Chuck Norris.