This is going to be a different sort of “column” from what I usually do. As you may know from some of my previous articles, this summer I attended the BIMA arts program at Brandeis University. I “majored” in creative writing, learning new techniques and improving my skills along with 13 other fellow writers. This week I’d like to share with you a sample of my writing—a spoken-word poem that I performed (not by heart, sadly) at a poetry slam during the program. The line breaks, punctuation—or lack thereof—and repetition in this piece are all intentional. I hope you enjoy this taste of my poetry, a different sort of writing than I usually share in this space.
Lying facedown on a school bus
As it trudges into what’s known
As the ‘city of dreams.’
Staring up at that white, ridged ceiling.
The skyscrapers are like dust in my mind’s eye
As I fall even while motionless.
Lying facedown on a school bus
As I try to put a name on
This terrifying emotion that is coursing through me faster than my blood.
My heart pounds and I take a deep breath—1, 2, 3.
Dread. Existential dread. What am I doing here and who am I and why, why am I doing any of this?
I have made too many choices and they all may be wrong.
Lying facedown on a school bus
Thinking about what the next day will bring.
So many faces and I don’t want to face any of them.
I know that I will walk through the halls and not know what to say,
will have nothing to add to the blobs of chatter surrounding my pained ears.
They all seem to have their own intersecting lives stories secrets secrets secrets and my own rarely cross their paths.
I am separate, different, out of the loop.
Lying facedown on a school bus
Having chosen a path and beginning to see that its foundations weren’t as strong as I hoped.
Is it possible to make a career in writing, of all things?
Hardly anyone gets published, no one gets noticed, no one makes any difference.
And I may be doomed to be one of them, a poor writer who came for the whole story
And left with a broken heart.
I may be headed towards failure, but
I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor, I’m not going to be what I’m not.
But what I am will be challenging.
Lying facedown on a school bus
Remembering the infinite steps before I reach any semblance of a career.
Not a day goes by when the next steps don’t cross my mind,
A cacophony of college grad school job Ivy application essay money money money—the element by which it may all sink or swim. But first comes the unrelenting pressure.
Lying facedown on a school bus
Unexcited for another day of feeling distant and being slammed
With test after test after essay after homework and trapped
In a never ending cycle of all work no play. Free time is like gold to me,
And has become just as rare. I will be exhausted, overextended,
And will watch others going out to shows and the like while I am stuck
Trapped imprisoned in a hole I dug myself because of how much I took on.
But then I sit up as the bus nears its destination, and I take a deep breath that actually does something.
I’m alive I can breathe I can talk I can see.
I’m so lucky, so fortunate.
I will talk to people, I will make myself noticed, I will be someone.
I may be doubting my path but I will keep taking it anyway.
I may feel ‘out of the loop’ but I can bring myself inside of it.
I may feel that existential dread but I want to replace it
With hope for my existence my sake my life all of us.
The bus stops and I step off.
I see the glass doors, holding such
Terror and possibility in their handles. Today could determine everything
My friends tests grades choices, my being. Or it could be a day that means nothing.
Tomorrow might be another day where I will be lying facedown on a school bus, once again doubting myself. But I can break the cycle.
I walk up to the doors and say to the security guard, “Good morning.”
Oren Oppenheim, 17, is a rising senior (yes, he did survive junior year!) at Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan and lives in Fair Lawn, NJ. He spends his free time writing and reading, and hopes to become a published novelist and a journalist. He just finished the BIMA Arts program at Brandeis University, majoring in creative writing and minoring in animation. You can email him at [email protected] and see his photography at facebook.com/orenphotography.
By Oren Oppenheim
