Today I'll Be Brave - A Poem

HEY YO PLEASE READ THIS THING UP HERE BEFORE YOU READ THE POEM THANKS.

Okay.

I'm going to try to post more in 2013.  I have some stories from Power of the Pen that I'll try to type up and post at regular(ish) intervals while I work on other stuff.  More on those when I first post one.

Now, this poem.  My English teacher likes to have us read poetry and then write "copy changes" of whichever poem we just read.  A copy change kind of just taking the loose format of the poem and then throwing your own ideas into it I guess?  Or maybe a better way to describe it is just saying that you're basing your poem on this other poem.  I don't really know how to explain it, it's something we've done in my school for ages.

Anyway, this poem is a copy change of/is based on "Today I'll Sit Still" by Ernesto Trejo.  I hope you like it.  I'll sift through my other copy changes and see if there are any others worth sharing.

Thank you for reading this.

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Today I'll Be Brave

Today I’ll be brave
That means today is the day
That I stop pursing my lips
Biting my cheek
Breathing in shakily and saying
“Maybe later”

Today I’ll stop lying
About what my heart really says
Truthfully, I’ll say
“I love you.”
“I hate you.”
“I don’t feel okay.”

Today I’ll throw myself down on my bed
Twist and tear the covers with weak fingers
And quaking shoulders
And I won’t sew my lips together
When I scream into the sheets

Because I will scream
And brandish my bottled up secrets
Like a sword in battle drawn too late
And until you can hear
The broken song lyrics
I’ve pinned to myself

And until my lungs shrivel up like a flower
Left out too long in the sun
And the wailing turns into sobbing
Little oceans dripping down my nose
I can taste the sea wind
On my winter-chapped lips

But I will not
Feel sad
I actually
Will feel
Rather happy

And I can’t exactly
Pin a reason down
A dead moth behind glass
But there will be something satisfying
And freeing in the act of it

And even with
The interference between
My thoughts and my mouth
All the irrelevant white noise
Fading in and out of coherency
All the glitches in my movements
The cacophony of deafening ideas
Today it will not matter

I’ve got my books in my hands
And today the ancient smell of paper
Of old stories and old libraries
Is enough to fill me up
And patch over the holes left by others
Who chipped out a little piece of me
And stole away with it
Still hidden among the lint in their pockets

Today I will be valiant
And bold and noble
I’ll skip back to my playground days
With carrot flowers braided in my hair
The roots and dirt still attached
A little tin foil crown with sea glass gems
And a sword that I found under a tree
Leaves and all

And even though
I’m not brave enough
To completely usurp my uncertainties
And become a ruler
Today I’m still strong enough
To be a knight

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It's really vague, but anyone who can tell me which song by which band I'm referencing with the "carrot flowers" wins a round of applause.  Hint:  The band is mentioned often in Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan.

G'night folks.
xo