At age 13, before I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, a form of Asperger’s, I had to learn ways to navigate the world and not be overwhelmed, 24/7. Navigating the world and not being overwhelmed was no easy feat, but one video showed me a way to make sense of my surroundings and a way to organize my thoughts. The video was a TED talk by Sarah Kay, a spoken word poet who expresses messages through… well… poetry.
For those of you who do not know what spoken word is, I will tell you. Spoken word is a type poetry and presentation style that coveys the content of the poem in a way that the masses will connect to. This style used emphasis, hand motions, and a story telling like fashion to convey a hidden truth.
From this video I got hooked on poetry. The way I had learned poetry before this, from English teachers who talked about Shakespeare and Homer, made me bored to death. I thought all poetry was ridiculously hard to read and to comprehend. I never knew that it would be such a good outlet for me. Now, whenever I do not understand, I write. Whenever my emotions are in a mush pot, I write. I write to make sense of the world I live in that, otherwise, really makes no sense to me.
Now here is a poem I wrote. I hope you will see the help poetry can give a person like me. I now have a way to organize my jumbled thoughts. And that, my dear friend, is a great gift no one can ever take away.
If Only I Could Change the World...
When the birds were chirping,
The grass was swaying,
And my brain was still that of an innocent child,
I ventured to tell my family my extremely optimistic plans for the world.
I told them how my four friends and I would become citizens of every country on Earth,
We would move on to become all the countries' presidents,
Then we would unite the world.
It seemed so simple,
So easy,
So easy to reach.
There would be no more wars,
And no more struggles to find safety.
If I only knew there were 196 countries…
I saw struggles,
Death,
And hardships…
I had heard of wars,
Guns,
And cries for help…
I felt like I was the only one who noticed,
The only one who cared,
And the only one who was not satisfied
With how the world turned.
I wanted change,
Big change.
Because of this I made plans,
Big plans
To change the world
for the better.
I was so innocent to reality --
Everything seemed reachable
When I was still young.
Never the typical girly kid,
The one who dreams about make-up,
Ponies and princesses, no --
I was a worldly thinker,
I was a kid who did not understand
Differences being shunned.
I was a kid who did not understand
People who said, “Great minds think alike”,
When the most successful people
Thought like no one else.
I was what some people call an idealist.
My idealistic mind could not make sense of the world as it spun on its axis.
Before I knew what inflation was,
I wanted to print out money for the poor
Making them rich.
The gap between the rich and the poor seemed so unfair
And so unethical.
Third grade I started to realize this gap.
Family and friends gathered together to make lunches.
Not just a couple lunches,
But hundreds.
Many brown paper bags full with sandwiches dripping with PB&J,
Fresh Fruit,
Canned goods,
And a kind note.
Filled buckets upon buckets,
Tubs upon tubs,
And cars upon cars.
Crossing the Bay Bridge,
To the city on the Bay,
We carried plenty of smiles to be passed around.
I wanted these paper bag lunches to show those in the shadows
That others are thinking of them in a positive light.
I wanted these paper bag lunches to enact change,
Big change.
We all arrived in San Francisco,
The city in which people are said to be making millions,
The city in which skyscrapers touch the clouds,
And the city where people go to look for a better life.
In all the corners of the world,
There is evil.
Evil so great
No one will ever understand it
Unless they suffer through it.
In San Francisco homelessness and hunger,
Eat at the soul.
I handed out the first paper bag lunch.
I had imagined this moment.
I dreamed that I would be smiling,
Extending my giving arms towards people living in the shadows,
Giving them a sense of hope,
A feeling that they are not alone.
When I saw the people so grateful,
Appreciative of what I saw as a miniscule thing,
Something that I had taken for granted
In my world,
I was filled with hope.
There is still goodness.
To know what you have,
And are blessed with,
One must venture to a place where people have nothing,
Where people appreciate kind small gestures.
I believed and still believe
Much of the privileged population of Earth
Needs to see and help those
Who have less.
This will,
Enact change,
Big Change.
Tiny tears streamed off of a man’s face
When I gave him a lunch.
Crying,
Which I previously understood to be associated with sadness,
I then understood can come from a place of happiness.
I have never been too good with words,
I had no clue what to say to these unexpected tears,
I was only in third grade.
Instead of trying to tell him everything will be ok,
Which was something I could not be sure of,
I said,
“I will be thinking of you.”
And I have been ever since.
Grown up,
Realistic aspirations have taken ahold of me.
I now dream to effect the world,
Like the ripples a pebble makes,
When dropped into a pond.
I still do have hope
That some day,
Everyone will be equal world citizens,
Devoted to the good of human-kind.
Hopefully my small ripples,
Turn into waves,
That enact change,
Big change.
