i felt like

writing poetry one day

so i sat

with a pencil in my hand, but i

held it too hard

and the lead broke

and because of my

english teacher

i thought about symbolism and

how life was a brittle existence

at worst

and at best was the potential that a pencil

brought, the possibilities

of art

and of philosophy written down; of thought

intellectual stimuli

and then i realized

that

all that had happened was that

i broke a pencil

and really, life was just

absurd

as was my english teacher