Disclaimer: I own this, but let's keep that secret between me and you, ok?

Poems Scream

"Poems don't scream."

One of my college professors flipped through my paper. Red ink bled through my essay like blood. The marks were crisscrossed scars. Some authors consider their work to be their children. If so, someone had mutilated my baby.

I clinched my fist, digging my finger nails into my palm, trying to block out my emotions. My heart wrestled my brain.

Calm down, dumbass. Do you think overreacting is going to help your grade?

My mind won.

"You said in the essay-" The professor stopped and took a sip of her fancy bottled water. "-That your poem 'screams defiantly into the darkness'. That makes no sense. Poems don't scream."

I had seen poems scream, cry, laugh, kill, beg...Poem's were humans made out of words. They were more alive than many people.

"Nothing makes sense in this essay. It was barely a D-."

My baby isn't perfect. I'm no genius, far from it. I often wrestle with the worry that the world is getting smarter as I get progressively stupider. But still...my baby is not trash. I will not leave it in some trash can in the dead of winter to die.

I suddenly had the urge to go write a best selling - critically acclaimed - noble price winning novel. Then I'd march down to her office, wave it in front of her face and say: 'Who knows what symbols and images are NOW?' But even if I could, she would be old and gone. There is no pleasure in mocking the feeble.

There should be no pleasure in mocking at all, but I am not perfect either.

"I don't think you know what images and symbols are."

What are images but preconceptions that change with the tides of time? Words ebb and flow out of fashion. Years later, after they have lost their meaning scholars try to tie their corpses together with cliff note string.

I know this. I try to cling to my truth. But under the glare of her PH.D my truth slips through my fingers like grains of sand. I'm like the last solider in a battle, watching the enemy's reinforcements rush toward me. I hold my weapon up to meet the horde. I scream defiantly into the night.

After a quick wipe of my betraying eyes, I tried to focus on whatever she was saying.

"This entire paragraph is useless."

Stand up straight. Don't look pathetic.

If my baby is trash, then it deserves no tears. Right? Still, a being without anyone to cry over their death is sadder than the death itself. Perhaps, I'm praying for all of the poems that would be denied that right.

Either way, I will not allow Mrs. Professor to see me upset.

Doubt worms its way into my heart. I am a nothing undergraduate. But god, I tried. I really tried. What happened to me? I used to be so bright. Now all of the bulbs have went out. Can you wake up one morning "stupid"?

No. That's not true.

Knowledge does not equal wisdom. And I'm wise enough to know I have very little of it. I will not go quietly. Even if I am an ignorant fool, so be it! I'll rage along with the poems. I'll scream until my voice runs dry and the stars burn out.

Can you hear?

Screaming. Everywhere.