Well. The time has come (like I knew it would). I have officially been stripped of my title as "The person in the immediate family that writes things pretty good and stuff". There is another person, currently unnamed, that has decided to step (or wheel) into my territory. He couldn't leave good enough alone. Couldn't be happy or satisfied with winning the International Science Fair, doing research at Harvard, being the "nice one" or even surviving a terrible car accident and two and a half month long coma. Nope. Guess that wasn't good en ought for Mr. Goody Two Shoes. Can't stop there, oh no. So here is it. He has decided to "whip up" a little poem--took him about 10 minutes to write. I walked into the room and, when I asked him what he was doing, he flipped his hand in a very nonchalant way and said, "Oh, I just wrote a poem". And I read it and it was good, with metaphor and everything. Ad reline flooded my system and the world grew black before my eyes. The shock was great, so terribly great. And slowly, ever so slowly, I gripped the edge of his computer table, knuckles white with tension. Then I leaned toward him, with care, until I was inches away from his backstabbing, overachieving face. And, with a slight smile playing upon my lips, I hissed, "Back off, man. Stay away from the writing thing. That's my gig, see. You don't wanna go there or there will be a price to pay, big man." And then I stepped backwards, crossed my arms in a cocky and slightly intimidating manner and tilted my stetson hat over my right eye. Now...if I was Jimmy Cagney or some guy from the Sopranos I would have either shot him or stuck a big cigar in my mouth and asked him for a light. But since I am just me, I just stood there, stuck my bottom lip out in a pout, said, "Aww, man" bit my nails in a highly nervous manner and slunk away. Shoulders drooping and head hung low.
So here is his poem:
Ouch! My Head!
Hit my head
Should be dead
Hurt my chest
My mom's the best
The docs thought I'd die
The farm I did not buy
Now I'm on the mend
And that is the end
Of this poem.
---By Sam Howell (or is this really by Sam or maybe was this poem written as a way of drawing people away from his real poem so that I can still be the writer in the family and our life can continue as before and stuff)
Okay. Sam didn't write THAT poem. I did. Darn it. Okay...here is his real poem:
Life's Little Things
Valentine's Day can never be the same
One minute made the whole difference
Even the doctors did not know what would happen
This boy had so much promise
All thrown away
In just one minute
But some hope shone through
Just like a piano
While some keys are black
Like the hopes on that day,
Most of the keys remain white.
The boy has fully recovered
Some of what was lost that night.
Survival of the luckiest, he says.
Not how evolution planned it at all
But every day, he strengthens...
---Sam Howell (for real this time)
So here is my response:
Talent Interrupted
Sister sits, fingers tapping keys
Tears sliding down her pinched, old face
Like rain down a window.
All she had
in the world
was her gift of words.
Taken from her
Cruelly, Quickly, Violently
Like a monkey grabbing bananas
and shoving them greedily inside
My brother stole my light
and ate it
in
one
big
gulp.
--Written in jest by the sister of the boy that can't keep his hands out of other people's areas of interest.
Bec
P.S. Fine. By the way, I decided about five minutes ago that I am going to do a science fair project. I don't care that I'm almost 34 years old. I'm doing it. Going today to get me some petri dishes and glass beakers. Some ugly, transparent science goggles, too. I'll discover the cure or cause of something or other...and then you'll be sorry. YOU'LL ALL BE SORRY! Mwhahahah (evil laugh with dramatic music following).
Darn it.
Bec