broken ballerina: a flashback poem!

 hello! i hope you are doing well.

my last blog post was about discovering my buried middle school poetry (ahh so much nostalgia and cringe). 

Thinking about that blog post, I think it's only fair that since I talked so much about it, I might as well share one of the poems I wrote. And so, out of the many poems to choose from, I picked one of the first poems I ever wrote, titled Broken Ballerina. 

I wrote Broken Ballerina after reading the poem Why I Hate Raisins by Natalie Diaz - Diaz's poem is simple but moved me in such a profound way. In fact, it's probably the first poem I read that I actually got  - you know, more than just understanding, but really feeling the meaning. Similarly, the poem I wrote is simple and unstructured, but I hope it creates the same effect. 

Disclaimer: I did edit the original 8th grade poem by changing out the first line from Mexico to Shanghai (I like it better that way, but it doesn't really change the actual meaning of the poem). 

So, without further ado, here is the poem I wrote in 8th grade titled: Broken Ballerina. 

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I remember the hot Shanghai air
How the warm air would lift my words
Into the sky
As the syllables tumbled from my mouth
Gurgling like a stream
Coming out with sharp accent marks
Embellished with flowery tones
They were delivered
Hot-rapid fire
My words would float
Dancing in the hot air
Pirouetting and turning and expressing 
Tracing the curves of the sky
They would make cool breezes
As the sighs of my breath
Are released into the air
Slipping under the heat wave.
Here in American Ohio
The windows are frosted with ice in the winter
People speak
As if gravel was stuck in their mouth
In sharp tones
Like knives jutting into my ribs
Unfamiliar syllables
Form hard stones in the pocks of my cheeks
Unwilling to come out through pursed stubborn lips.
Their words are plain
No accent marks shaped like raised eyebrows
That add expression to the otherwise
Lackluster words
Instead of accent marks tracing the tops of the vowels and consonants
Encircling paragraphs
Guiding a sentence like a music composition
With flourishes and slants and curves
My words sink heavy in the cold
Dense and lifeless
They tumble out
Splattering and shattering in the cold
On the frigid cement pavement
I stand
In the pouring rain
My mouth hanging agape
Silent
My words are stuck
They have stopped twirling their ballerina feet
Frozen under the spotlight of glares from unfamiliar strangers.