Photograph

Sometimes I feel like my past clutches at me too readily, that I slip too easily into it.
Perhaps facing it head on will help, perhaps the companionship of God will give me strength, perhaps the wonderful smiles of a close friend will chase it away.

My poem, Silent Softly Vivid Dream was accepted in the Minnimengo Review, a highly competative poetry antholgy of on-campus writers.

There was a poetry slam following the acceptance letter, where the poets would get together and read their pieces. I had never seen so many white people at a poetry reading. I felt so out of place. It's odd. I don't feel comfortable with my own "colour". I found it hard to relate to their bitter, depressive, soulless pieces. Silent Softly Vivid Dream is about love, about friendship, about beautiful things.
Most of my poetry is. It's about how I see the world as still beautiful no matter what.

I don't relate to the average poets.
I felt alone.

Later that evening, I went out with Inya, the very girl Silent Softly Vivid Dream is about. We watched Seabiscuit in the theatre. We slouched low in our seats, our feet propped up, and shared private jokes and talked in low tones about random things the movie made us think of.

I went home, and I saw the photo. I had pulled it out unthinking to use as a reference for a piece I was designing about a man who fell in love with someone of another culture.

Unthinking.

It held me in a trance for a while, until I was able to break away and put it back in it's box in the top of my closet.

~Orion