Irene Zhang // MY RELATIONSHIP WITH WRITING THIS RELATIONSHIP POEM

“The poem is due Friday, this week.” The teacher announced on Tuesday.
“The topic of this poem is your relationship with anything.”
I, master procrastinator, scoffed and smugly thought,
“Hey, I still have four more days!”

Well, on Thursday, my Google™ doc still stared blankly at me.
“Shit,” I thought, “What do I write about?”

Should I write about the fig bars I constantly eat in class?
‘The sweet smell of the fig
The processed sugar
The soft whole wheat cover
It brought a tear to her eye as she gleefully devoured’

I carefully scrutinized the sample poem, the imagery was not vivid enough.
I frustratedly clenched my fists. The tears and glee didn’t go together
So I scrapped the draft, disappointed but already lured by new ideas
Grades? School? A serious poem?

Should I write about the severe lack of snow days this year?
‘A young girl
Sadly stared at the her computer
The 85{8f8d4e344c8a972b8e97d55fa7ec8be4d5f796681e06b247e4219849f812f758} chance on snow day calculator
Just went down to 50{8f8d4e344c8a972b8e97d55fa7ec8be4d5f796681e06b247e4219849f812f758}’

I carefully scrutinized the sample poem, not thrilled by the wording.
So I scrapped the idea, negativity starting to drip into my mind, panic lurking in the background
That was when I struck gold
Meta gold

“I’ve made up my mind!” I declared to my friend in the whimsical green dress writing her own
poem.
“I’ll write about my relationship with the process of writing a relationship poem.”

And so I wrote,
‘“The poem is due Friday, this week.” The teacher announced on Tuesday.’