“The Sun,” oil on canvas, by Edvard Munch, c. 1913.
I didn’t mean it when I said that the sky
Was yellow and the sun was green
Any more than I meant it when I
kicked and screamed
And threw objects of interesting variety,
A book, a piano, a candelabra
Each flicker a section of my life
Each flame a different memory,
Tiny burns of nostalgia
Pricking, Pressing,
Splotches of paint on plain purple,
Marker strokes, the ones that
Rip through the pages and tear out words,
Maybe my flesh is paper
And my heart is canvas,
Maybe I’ll screech,
Wail until my voice is nothing but
insistent barking,
The sounds of many violins
Falling from the sky.
Laila Chudgar is an eighth grader who lives in Los Angeles with her family. Her poems have been published in Does It Have Pockets? and selected for poetry readings at her school.
