My Unnecessarily Long Poem

The instructor said, Mariah
Go home and write
A page tonight
And let that page come out of you
Then, It will be true.

Its somehow so simple
To write about someone so complicated.
I’ve been on this earth for seventeen years,
Yet have seen enough to fill 50.
I am one of many in a class who all look just like me.
We are white, some with blonde hair some with brown.
All proceeding in an orderly fashion in the same direction –
But Where?
We all walk the same speed at the same time through the same halls.
First I hall, then down through D, passed C and onto B.
Into another class room once more.
As the final bell sings its song of freedom,
we all go our separate ways to do our separate things,
but inevitably end up here;
Sitting at home, trying to fill a blank page with life and emotion.
This is what fills it for me.

At only the age of seventeen,
It is hard to tell what is true or what will happen.
But what I know is true right now –
In this place at this time.
What I feel is true.
I feel the earth and the earth feels me and you.
It is honest and cruel,
Always changing yet always the same.
So full of so many people,
One giant mass trying to pull in many different directions.
What makes us who we are?
One in a billion ,
All living the same.

Well I enjoy good times and despise the bad.
I like to laugh, learn, work and play.
I would like nothing more then the satisfaction of a fruitful life,
Yet understand the misfortunes that will happen.


I guess being the same does not make us all alike.
I breathe and eat, the same as you.
But what I feel and what I experience is something you,
nor anybody else will ever know.
I am full of mystery and hope.
If my poem is true, will it to be mysterious and hopeful?
And by reading it,
Will these qualities posses you?
This poem is part of me – Mariah
But it will also be a part of you,
And part of all my teachers I have had before you.
It is only with the love of the people in my life I am able to write this,
So this poem is part of them as well as you and me.
And now these blank pages share so much of so many people,
All different, yet still the same somehow.
But who we are,
And what we do,
Is what makes the lives were living,
Honest and true.