The Poetry Girl

This story is © copyrighted to Adrienne Wolter in 2003 and onwards. It was written on Wednesday, October 8th, 2003.

The Poetry Girl

There was once a girl who could write very well. She wrote poetry.
She loved to write. It was an outlet, something to do when she was bored, and it was enjoyable. Every day, during class, in the margins she would let thoughts flow in poetry. The teachers never really liked her. To them, she was just doodling. Not paying attention. They didn’t know what she was writing, and even though she said it was poetry, they never saw it.
You see, this girl was afraid to show other people her writing. Not because she wasn’t sure it was ‘good enough’, no, she knew it was wonderful. Not because it was any particular emotion that would cause alarm. She wanted to show them, but at the same time she didn’t. She was afraid that they would steal it.
“What are you writing about?” her friends would say. “I’m just writing poetry,” she would answer.
She trusted no one enough to see her thoughts without stealing them, so she showed them to no one.

The day before her eighteenth birthday, she died in a car crash. She had kept all of her poetry in a locked box. For a month, her family did not disturb anything of hers, feeling it would be invading her privacy, but gradually they got curious.
They broke into the box and saw before them all the notes that she had never taken to class, hundreds upon hundreds of pages of loose leaf and filler paper entirely covered with words; sad words, bright words, funny words, energetic words. Her family poured over the many pages, carefully copying each poem onto a page and putting it into several books. They kept these books on their shelf, and pulled them out whenever they were mad at the world or felt like remembering their daughter or sister or cousin or niece.
The newspaper published several of these poems in an article on gifted children, and the people who had known the girl were shocked at how moving her words were, the words that she had not once shared with others. Past teachers came to apologize to the family for being so harsh and mocking to the girl. People that the family didn’t even know came up to them on the street and asked if they had read the words of the poetry girl.
If only she had shared her words with the world. If only she had stepped out of the fear of her work being stolen. If only she had done it before she had died.

If you are proud of something, share it and bring the joy to others too.