LHS Junior's Poem Earns NY Times Honor
LHS Junior's Poem Earns NY Times Honor
Congratulations to junior Mel Diemert on being chosen as a runner-up in the New York Times' Coming of Age in 2024 Contest! Students were asked to submit a piece of writing or art in response to the question, “What can you show or tell us to help explain what it’s like to grow up in this political moment?” Mel's piece of poetry was chosen from among 1,600 entries from across the nation! Click on Read More to read Mel's powerful entry.
Mel's entry:
Queer Kid Imagines An Alternate Reality/Politics Disguised as a Love Poem
Queer: A synonym for an absence of love
Not a new definition of love,
But its antithesis
In this world, I cannot afford indifference
I was unable to find it at Goodwill this summer
I limp through life as a statement, a red flag declaring war
In another world,
We sit on the floor of our bathroom, 25, after a long day of work
Your hair is up
The world is quiet
And softly pirouetting
I know how to make your coffee;
4 sugars, a splash of creamer
It overflows the cup and pours onto the yellowed, aging tiles
And the world is a newborn baby with jaundice
Orange, crying, glowing
Effereservent is the word carved into our skin
In this world, I don’t listen to the sirens go by
Instead, I lean my ear toward the babbling creek of your throat and tune everything else out
I trace hearts on your shoulder, smooth down a hair
Jesus died years ago, but I swear for a moment
I can see him painting us on an easel in the corner
Clementine shelters his canvas
Here, indifference was baked into my childhood brownies
I was born clutching it tight like an IV
When I lost my first tooth, I tasted it in my mouth instead of blood
Here, love and fear aren’t conjoined twins,
Split in half and told they are not the same soul
In this world, I have cried,
But never wailed
Back in reality,
I’m a cozy home for uncomfortable questions
They fester, an ineffable wound
Back in reality,
I cross my fingers every four years,
Tight, like ribbons
Meanwhile,
Love becomes silent, it shrivels
And action is a highway,
A headache
Of noise