There I am, as every day, binder out and papers everywhere, backpack opened to the candy stash that badly needs replenishing, hair a mess, mind a mess, too tired to concentrate on the work I have to do.  Enter the usual companions:  a health class, a couple ditchers hoping to finish a paper by fourth block, the girl with bruises on her arms and makeup in her hair, the two antisocial boys who sit in opposite corners with identical lunches (peanut butter and Capri Sun), the Whovian who puts away the returned books, and my lot of social misfits (there's three of us).  We take up a computer and a table each day from 10:42 until 11:18, engaged in our various tasks.  Through funny pictures and a book of proverbs and our lunch of backpack candy and the constant awareness that we are the hopeless dregs of high school society, we muse on existence, point out each others' problems (it makes our own seem less isolated), and make idiots of ourselves all below a whisper.  No one tells us to go away or stop showing up or to shut up already about our problems, likely because everyone's got their **** to deal with and I'm beginning to see that everyone respects that this is our way of dealing with it.  People who come to the library at lunch don't want to involve themselves in someone else's life; they want to isolate themselves for just a few minutes from the ******* around them and accomplish whatever they came to accomplish before facing the real world once more.

Sometimes, I write poetry for show.
People read my metaphors,
And claim that they love them.
I climb onto their shoulders,
Lean against their heads,
And scream in their ears until,
"Oh, wow, that's so powerful."
Then I move on to the next person,
Waving a piece of paper in my hands.

Other times, I write because I want to share.
Not because I want people to love my poetry,
But because I want to know that some people feel like I do.
I love it when I find someone else that had a common misconception.
Or when someone else is a Whovian like I am.
Or when someone one else has read Atlas Shrugged from cover to cover.
It makes me feel connected on a level deeper than all the time, alcohol, and conversations that we could possibly have.
It helps me not to feel alone.

But most of my poetry gets tucked away.
Enjoyed only by me.
Like writing myself sticky notes.
Sometimes they're little things.
A simple phrase that brings entire afternoons back.
A private moment with my father that I loved.
A one-liner that a 10-year-old nailed me with.
They are little things, but they are mine.

Then there are big things.
Things that I have tried to hide from myself, but they reveal themselves eventually.
Until I capture them on paper.
Imprisoned forever and never bother me again.

This is why I write.
To share, to embrace, to remember, and to forget.
Everything else is just me yelling at the world, claiming to be a writer.