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Zulu Samperfas Dec 2012
Why do we remember some moments like a photograph
and others only forgotten or through a haze
Santa Cruz High School theater we were called in to get
our PSAT scores, since there was no internet and it was only paper
and I didn't know what the PSAT was or anything and the counselor said
this is really not a prediction of your life you are not a loser if you score low
and went on and on and I got mine and opened it and I was in the 96th percentile
in language and I couldn't believe it so I called my mother on the school payphone
I can even remember the wire connecting the phone to the box and she was so
blase--not higher? Oh, and that's compared to kids in the expensive prep schools.
and I realized that she knew there were expensive prep schools and I wasn't at one
but later, I opened the gate to my flute teacher's driveway and it was full of
splinters and I remember this so clearly as I touched the gate and thought
I am in the 96th percentile despite not going to those expensive prep schools
and I felt like I was smart and capable and I could really escape my parents
and figure things out
Breeze-Mist  Oct 2016
PSAT
Breeze-Mist Oct 2016
There are many ways
One can become a zombie
There's viruses, being bitten
And then there's taking the PSAT
Renee Dec 2014
if this is what we must do to win,
to do what must be done,
then I pray for the child who must say that she lost
and I pray for the child who won.
Mel May 2021
I follow the red road
To freedom
I follow the yellow flowers
To my psat
I follow the green clovers
To my future
And I stand still to take
In the fragrance of
The blooming flowers
And dancing clovers
And the earthy red road
For my present
17 - 05 - 2021
Emma Peterson Apr 2022
I open the window
So I don’t suffocate
But the air doesn’t reach my lungs
As I try to count my breaths

Monday I came in to see you
For the last time.
The last time.

And I never said goodbye.

Wednesday I took a test.
Back at school and then went home.
I don’t remember anything
Beside the PSAT and the moment you were gone from me.
I remember it was 9.

Dad in the hall
Bedroom door opens
“I’m home”
(the last time I believe in miracles as delusion and hope burn all sense of reason).
Is she with you?

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s Gone.”

Black. Repeat.

I remember how everything got worse from then.
It doesn’t get better
You get used to it.
You get used to cold,
Just the absence of heat.
You get used to the holes when they become a part of you.

I don’t remember forgetting.
Your face gets fuzzy.
I conjure up your voice but I lost your laugh.
I can’t hold on to everything that’s flying away from me
In a thousand different directions
And when someone asked me last week,
I can’t remember your favorite food,
It’s been viciously consumed by the hunger of time.

I remember the look on your dad’s face-
This is what I remember most-
The look as he stared at you
With silent tears
And the face of a man,
A veteran of war,
Who was never prepared for the devastation of life
As he is told his daughter will die.
She will die slowly.
And he can’t save her,
But he can watch
As the life drains out of her.

I gasp for air uncontrollably
Leaning my head out the window.
As I am stuck remembering
Memories block air from reaching my lungs.
Stuck on repeat
Spinning spinning spinning
And it’s been two years.
As of today it's now been five years, but I thought I'd share this one from three years ago.
I am not a girl
I forgot to tell you that
I have never been a girl
I wish you knew how much it hurt to mark
Female on the PSAT
When I was not female in my mind
How emasculating it is to wear a skirt everyday
And be called sweetheart
Did I tell you how wrong I feel when I look in the mirror and see
A woman looking back
How I want to cut out the parts of me that don’t fit
I wouldn't even feel the pain
It would be nothing compared to the pain of being in the wrong body
This is the wrong body
I am not a girl
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Jul 2020
I sat across from my friend, Bruce, in 4th grade.
When Ms. Perrin raised the card that had on it
7 x 6, Bruce and I raised our hands at the same
time. But when we began reading the same book,
Bruce turned to the second page before I was half-
way down the first. That was the first time I became
conscious that something was wrong, but I didn't
know what. Every year I went for my eye exam,
and every year the doctor said to me, "Tell me
when the dot and the line meet." And ever
year I told him "The dot and the line are not
meeting." And every year, the doctor said nothing
back to me. I was basically a straight-A student
through school, but when my dad had me
apply to Andover, I had to take the PSAT.
I remember that every time I got to the read-
ing section, I could finish only about a third
of the questions. Even though I continued
to get straight-As, even though i was elected
president of my class of over 800, I got re-
jected twice in a row from Andover, because
of my unbelievably low scores on the reading
section of the PSAT. Each summer after being
rejected, my dad sent me to Andover for sum-
mer school that was academically as rigorous
as the regular school year. I realized during
those summers that It took me twice as long
to read a page, let alone a book, as it took my
classmates. But that's what i did:  I read twice
as long as my classmates because i had to, and
I did well academically because of my tenacity.
At the end of the second summer school, my
dad and I visited the Director of Admissions.
The first thing he said to me as we entered his
office was "Tod, you've already been admitted
to the Class of 1962. You don't even have to
apply." I was stunned. My dad was overjoyed.
I did well at Andover during the regular school
years. I chose to matriculate to Columbia be-
cause of its Core Curriculum and its being in
New York City. I excelled there, but I contin-
ued to have to read twice as long as my class-
mates. Nine years after I graduated from Co-
lumbia (I was 27 then), I sat in a booth at a
restaurant in Topeka across from Michelle,
a psychologist at the Menninger Foundation,
who was sharing with me details about the
workshop she had attended the prior weekend
in Tulsa. Michelle had been fascinated with
what she had learned at the workshop from
a renown ophthalmologist whose specialty
was monocular vision, The more Michelle
shared with me, the more I felt she was descri-
bing the condition I had battled from 4th grade
through college, so at an appropriate point,
I interrupted her and told my story. She sat
there transfixed as she listened to my long
and painful ordeal. When I had finished,
Michelle sat there in silence for more than
a few moments, then said to me, "Tod, you
need to call the doctor, make an appointment,
then drive down to Tulsa and have him exam-
ine you." And that's what I did. The doctor
examined me for three hours, putting me
through all sorts of tests. I remember to this
day verbatim the last thing he said to me:
"Tod, I'm surprised you can even read a
book, let alone get through college." Well,
I did get through Columbia,  let alone Andover
as well. But as I tried to assimilate what I had
just found out, I thought that eye doctor in Topeka
who ever year I told "The dot and the line are not
meeting." Why had he not not said to me:
"Tod, you have a problem." Why had he not
done his job? I had long forgotten his name,
but I shall never forget his gross negligence.
And to be honest, though I had managed to
endure the pain and stress of all those years,
I am so proud of what I overcame and ac-
complished.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of ndover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks ha been a poet, a novelist, and a human-rights advocate his entire adult life
Qualyxian Quest Mar 2023
One foot in popular culture
Music, movies, YouTube, cars
One in universities
3 hands 4 this love that we call ours

Trains are more communal
Thomas Aquinas the Common Doctor
PSAT at Robinson
I volunteer to proctor

Women in their 50s
The best middle school English teachers
Withit-ness is what they have
Picollo players under the bleachers

He is a Travelin' Soldier
They are the Dixie Chicks
Charleston at night
3037, not 1776

       Meet me at Moby ****'s.

— The End —