RINFORZANDO
You are just a boy.
And I have symphonies hidden
in the dips of my spine,
strings laced into the lilt of my voice;
my body is a concerto.
You see, the blood vessels
traveling through my veins in this very moment,
contain the notes to your destruction.
Every time I close my eyes,
cymbals go off in the brown of my irises,
I celebrate what you never saw as beautiful.
The subatomic particles in my lungs
are composed of twelfth and eighth notes,
the staccato of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
The percussion of my feet
play a tune to my walk;
you will never forget when I pass by.
So when you try to take my staff
in your painkiller hands
and unravel my treble clef,
remember, you are just a boy.
—from 2016 Rattle Young Poets Anthology
__________
Why do you like to write poetry?
Sophya Giudici-Juarez: “I like to write poetry to escape. I like to write poetry so that I can talk about my problems without actually talking about my problems. I like to write poetry because it decorates the world around me with metaphors and makes everything seem less haunting.”