At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
~Plato
As I enter the last weeks of my time in college, I can’t help looking back to the stories and incidents that made me who I am today. And a large part of me now—the guy who likes to arrange various, and often random, words on paper—can be traced back to incidents of my past.
For instance, when I was hardly old enough to speak (well, maybe a little older than that) I used to dictate stories to my aunt who would then type them all up for me. Most of these tales were about Cheetahs (my favorite animal) and super powers (my favorite thing to daydream about), and together, I had some quite inventive, quite bizarre little tales. I have loved writing and telling stories ever since.
But aside from prose, I also have always had a love for poetry. Well, almost always. In fact, there is a particular point in my timeline when that passion originated, a particular occurrence that developed in step with another one of my passions today. Girls.
Back in kindergarten I met the woman of my dreams, my soul mate. She had perfect, shoulder-length brown hair, a smile that made my heart arch, and dimples so cute you would think they had been hollowed to hold maraschino cherries. Her name was Megan something.
Anyway, it was cold day outside and for some reason Megan’s inspiring intelligence hadn’t convinced her to wear a sweater. And for some other reason, the teacher wouldn’t let her go back inside to get one (you have to love nuns). I, myself not wearing my sweater—though this was due to my extreme, genetically-bred manliness rather than a lack of foresight—saw this interaction between Megan-something and the nun and realized the godsend of an opportunity.
Sneaking away from the playground, I hurried back inside to retrieve my sweater in order to give it to her. Oh! How my valor should floor you at this point! Upon my return with the certain-to-win-her-undying-love item, however, I witness something that makes my heart, my hopes, fall from the top of the monkey bars to the rough and painful sawdust beneath.
Austin, this rather rotund, obnoxious kid who probably would grow up to have really bad morals, had already given her his sweater. Moreover, they were even holding hands. So with my own, empty five-year-old fists balled in green rage, I vowed to win her heart back. And that’s when I started writing poetry.
So as you can tell, even at a young age I was a romantic in more ways the one. Not only finding the silver lining, but writing it too.
Poetically,
jdt