KarMel
Scholarship 2007
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Honorable
Mention: Best
Poem “Paddling
Backwards” By Maisha
Foster-O’Neal - OR |
Desciption of Submission: “Sometimes the only way to move yourself forward is
to start by writing everything backwards, by reliving your past on paper. This is a fictional poem-story.” - Maisha
Why Karen and Melody Liked It: We loved the
concept of the poem of writing everything backwards from present to past.
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He spins backwards, words unraveling as he’s paddling through memory’s eddying waters, the pen his ship that he steers through the past— it’s time to illuminate the truth and ruminate. His hands shake. The river empties into a
lake and he’ll take to the shores and give
himself to the stars snatched by the wind and
flung to the city windows where
they glitter and decay. He’s sixteen and he plays
the bass, chases his nightmares and
reigns them in —but he doesn’t like to
get wet. “Let me go. Let me go,” he
screams; the golden beasts don’t belong in this dream. But they’re strong and
he’s wrong, they rip his books from
his hands and rip his secrets till he
can’t stand; he’s curled on the ground; “Faggot! Faggot!” the golden ones shout, like it’s a bout of the
flu and it’s catching. He patches his soul and his pen scratches on the paper. He’s fourteen and he wants
to learn the guitar so he can write his nightmares to
music and be a star. “You’ll go far” he’s told;
“be brave, be bold.” He staves off caution and
whispers his secret —He’s shunned. The golden beasts run to
the site of the fight so he spites them all and
changes from guitar to bass. Lines chase his pen across
the paper. He’s twelve and he asks
his mom “When are feelings wrong?” His ink is smearing behind
the liquid curtain shielding his eyes from the outside. He’s ten with a new bike
and tickets to a baseball game. He’s learning to tame his
face and keep up the pace. His dad calls him Ace even though he knows he’s Jack, and in
three years the golden beasts across
the street will call him Queen. The pen slips and he lets
the river carry him deeper. He’s eight and he states
that he’s a big boy now: No more toy cars, it’s
time to look to the stars because when he’s grown up
he’ll fly away in a pirate ship to ever never foreverland. The ink trails his pen
like a game of follow the leader but he’s
not a wide-eyed dreamer any more. Now he’s six. He can count
to ninety-nine but mixes up sixty and seventy. He likes tea parties and
dolls, but don’t tell Paul or
Holden, the golden boys who live across the street. Don’t give them a reason
to tease him with the name Jackie-girl. The memories swirl by and
his pen leaks his words. He’s four and he likes to
color but it’s hard to stay inside the lines. At night the hall light
helps to keep the monsters where they belong.
The pen glides along; the ride is almost at its end. He’s two: two fingers and ten toes and a nose. He chose Elmo as his hero; he’s never heard the word
queer or homo but he knows Elmo isn’t a girl or a boy. The paper curls as it
burns and the river churns below the rotting
stars and the reigning dreams have begun to snow. He thinks as he steps onto
the shores: The golden ones don’t know that within each diamond
star is a rainbow that glows and though its shell may
crumble away the imprismed light will never decay. |