1.3.12

What We Weren't: On Choosing a Graduate School


They said they saw in us some unequivocal something.
They thought we would fit in their gold-trimmed boxes.
They sought to keep us on their neatly-paved sidewalks.
They assumed we wouldn't wonder when we looked upon the sky.

But we have walked to the edge of their fortresses.
And we have stood at the crest of their constructs, where all the sidewalks end.
We have seen the place where the world is all quietness - 
have felt the pulse, the heartbeat of the earth when lying against her,
have felt the weightlessness of gravity when standing to our full height. 

And we have found the others who had been there. 
We have felt the silent jolt of envy when we found their creeds in droplets of ink,
their breath still heaving in and out with each turn of the page.
We felt as if we were there, heir to that last lingering vowel upon their parted lips,
so very raptured by their audacious inditements. 

That was the day we discovered what we weren't. 
We weren't able to turn our back on the sound of our own rhyme.
We couldn't ignore the blank space between the lines. 
We had not the aptitude to drop the pen, nor any remorse that may purge us of our mutiny. 

We weren't anybody's lock-pickers.
We weren't the suppressed, the compromised, the unfeeling;
We weren't to be boxed, nor held within a concrete barrier.
We weren't in want of privilege, born into it or not.
We weren't the unknown, and we could never be the unscripted. 
For we weren't, most inconveniently - nay, most delightfully, anything but writers.

@ 2012 by Rachel Lowry. All Rights Reserved {photo}

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