. On Someday .

I've been making my seniors write, write, write. And since April is National Poetry Month, four of their remaining assignments are poems.

I know they love me.

As a "mentor text" (fancy teacher word for "example"), I chose one of their assignments and wrote one of my own in class today. [It's really kind of terrifying to hook your computer up to the big screen and churn out an idea while the kids are watching/not watching/praying it's all over soon so they can graduate.]

It's based off off of a poem found in the New Yorker and comes from THIS prompt. You should write one, too. Scribble it down on a piece of paper next to you. Tell a story about something you will one day love about yourself. Mine happens to be wrinkles. :) 

Someday I’ll Love Becky

My momma gave me eye cream when I was 14.
      Said to slather it on my skin.
      Said it would prevent the wrinkles setting in.
So I did.
      I slathered in on.
      For fifteen years,
      it nourished my skin.
But the wrinkles still came.
            A frown line between my eyebrows,
            and wrinkles that stretched from my eyes –
            sort of like small spider legs
                  stretching.
                  Stretching.
                  Stretching out.
            And then came the parenthesis around my lips.
            Like an added epitaph on a one-day tombstone.
                  (This girl laughed.)
                  (She laughed.)
                  (Laughed.)
And then I had a little boy and suddenly,
      the wrinkles and
      the eye cream didn’t matter.
            Suddenly,
                  oh,
                        so
                              suddenly,
      the wrinkles were more like a story.
A story that he was a part of.
      A story that he practically created.
When I think about the thing
      that I’ll maybe one day love,
I think it must be the wrinkles.
Because how could you hate --
      how could you really hate
      anything
            (and I do mean anything)
that was created by living
      so
      well?

xoxo, 
​B.