Poems we’d written at different points in our lives.
He looks at my eyes, at the skin rubbed raw by the napkin.
But only happy poems. Poems about loving life. Poems we would never read to that depression-loving group of miserable poets inside.
And, as poets never do, we explained ourselves. Line for line.
The third week, we took the biggest chance of all and handed each other our entire notebooks of poetry.
He pushes a glass of ice water in front of me. Except for that glass and the napkin dispensers, the entire length of the counter is empty.
Wow! That took a lot of courage. For me, definitely. I’m sure for you, too, Ryan. And for the next two hours, with the sun going down, we sat on those concrete steps, turning pages.
His handwriting was horrible, so it took me a bit longer to read through his poems. But they were amazing. Much deeper than any of mine.
His stuff sounded like real poetry. Professional poetry. And someday, I’m sure of it, kids will be forced to analyze his poems out of a textbook.
I touch the cold glass, wrapping my fingers around it.
Of course, I had no idea what his poems meant. Not exactly. But I felt the emotions precisely. They were absolutely beautiful. And I felt almost ashamed at what he must have been thinking as he went through my notebook. Because reading through his, I realized how little time I’d spent on mine. I should have taken the time to choose better words. More emotional words.
But one of my poems grabbed him. And he wanted to know more about it…like when I wrote it.
But I didn’t tell him.
I don’t drink the water. I watch a single drop slide down the glass and bump against my finger.
I wrote it the same day a group of students got angry that someone had the nerve to ask for help regarding suicide. Remember why they got upset? Because whoever wrote the note didn’t sign her name.
How insensitive.
It was anonymous. Just like the poem that appeared in the Lost-N-Found.
So Ryan wanted to know why I wrote the poem.
With that one, I told him, the poem had to speak for itself. But I was interested in knowing what he thought it meant.
On the surface, he said, the poem was about acceptance-acceptance from my mother. But more than that, I wanted her approval. And I wanted certain people-in this case a boy-to stop overlooking me.
A boy?
At the base of the glass, the water creates a delicate suction, then lets go. I take a sip and let a small cube of ice slip into my mouth.
I asked if he thought it meant anything deeper.
I hold the ice on my tongue. It’s freezing, but I want it to melt there.
Part of me was joking. I thought he’d figured out my poem exactly. But I wanted to know what a teacher assigning the poem might want his or her students to discover. Because teachers always overdo it.
But you found it, Ryan. You found the hidden meaning. You found what even I couldn’t find in my own poem.
The poem wasn’t about my mom, you said. Or a boy. It was about me. I was writing a letter to myself… hidden in a poem.
I flinched when you told me that. I got defensive-even angry. But you were right. And I felt scared, and sad, by my own words.
You told me I wrote that poem because I was afraid of dealing with myself. And I used my mom as an excuse, accusing her of not appreciating or accepting me, when I should have been saying those words into a mirror.
“And the boy?” I asked. “What does he represent?”
It’s me. Oh God. It’s me. I know that now.
I cover my ears. Not to block any outside noise. The diner is almost completely silent. But I want to feel her words, all of them, as they’re said.
While I waited for your answer, I searched my backpack for tissue. At any moment, I knew I might cry.
You told me that no boy was overlooking me more than I was overlooking myself. At least, that’s what you thought it meant. And that’s why you asked about the poem. You felt it went deeper than even you could figure out.
Well, Ryan, you were right. It went much, much deeper than that. And if you knew that-if that’s what you thought-then why did you steal my notebook? Why did you print my poem, the poem that you yourself called “scary” in the Lost-N-Found? Why did you let other people read it?
And dissect it. And make fun of it.
It was never a lost poem, Ryan. And you never found it, so it did not belong in your collection.
But in your collection is exactly where other people found it. That’s where teachers stumbled across it right before their lectures on poetry. That’s where classrooms full of students cut up my poem, searching for its meaning.
In our class, no one got it right. Not even close. But at the time, we all thought we did. Even Mr. Porter.
Do you know what Mr. Porter said before handing out my poem? He said that reading a poem by an unknown member of our school was the same as reading a classic poem by a dead poet. That’s right-a dead poet. Because we couldn’t ask either one about its true meaning.
Then Mr. Porter waited, hoping someone would fess up to writing it. But that, as you know, never happened.
So now you know. And for those of you who need a refresher, here it is. “Soul Alone” by Hannah Baker.
