Slammed (Slammed #1)(54)

"I don't, really. If we read our poetry at Club N9NE we're exempt from the final. I'm thinking about doing one, but I don't know. The thought of getting up there in front of all those people makes me nervous."

"Push your boundaries, Lake. That's what they're there for."

I flip the poem upside down and sit up. "So what's up?"

She smiles at me and reaches to my face and tucks my hair behind my ear.

"Not much," she says. "I just had a few minutes before I had to leave for work. I wanted to let you know that it's my last night. I'm not working anymore after tonight."

I break our stare and lean forward and grab my pen. I put the cap back on it and close my notebook, tucking both the items inside my backpack.

"I'm still carving pumpkins, Mom."

She slowly inhales and stands up, hesitates, then walks back out the door.

15.

“Forever I will move like the world that turns

beneath me

And when I lose my direction, I’ll look up to the

sky

And when the black cloak drags upon the ground

I’ll be ready to surrender, and remember

Well we’re all in this together

If I live the life I’m given, I won’t be scared to

die.”

-The Avett Brothers, Once and Future Carpenter

Chapter Fifteen

Will walks into the classroom carrying a small projector. He sets it on the desk and begins hooking it up to his laptop.

"What we doing today, Mr. Cooper?" Gavin asks.

Will continues to prepare the projector as he responds to Gavin. "I want to show you why you should write poetry." He swings the plug around his desk and inserts it into the outlet on the wall.

"I know why people write poetry," Javi says. "Because they're a bunch of emotional saps with nothin' better to do than whine about ex-girlfriends and dead dogs."

"You're wrong, Javi," I say. "That's called country music."

Everyone laughs, including Will. He sits at his desk and turns the laptop on and glances at Javi.

"So what? If it makes someone feel better to write a poem about their dead dog, then great. Let them. What if some girl broke your heart Javi, and you decided to vent with a pen and paper? That's your business."

"That's fair," Javi says. "People are free to write what they want to write about. But the thing that bothers me is, what if the person who writes it doesn't want to relive it? What if a dude performs a slam about a bad breakup, but then he gets over it and moves on? He falls in love with some other chick, but now there's probably this YouTube video floating around on the internet of him talking all sad about how his heart got broke. That sucks. If you perform it, or even write it down, someday you'll have to relive it."

Will stops fidgeting with the projector and stands up and turns to the board. He grabs a piece of chalk, writes something and then steps aside.

The Avett Brothers

Will points to the name on the board. "Has anyone heard of them?" He looks at me and gives his head a slight shake, indicating he doesn't want me to speak up.

"Sounds familiar," someone says from the back of the room.

"Well,” he says as he paces the room. “They're famous philosophers who speak and write extremely wise, thought-provoking words of wisdom."

I try to stifle my laugh. He's mostly right, though.

"They were asked about this once. I believe they were doing a reading. Someone asked them a question about their poetry, and if it was hard having to relive their words each time they performed. Their reply was, that although they had ideally moved beyond that-from the person or event that inspired their words at that point in time, it doesn't mean someone listening to them wasn't in that.

"So? So what if the heartache you wrote last year isn't what you're feeling today. It may be exactly what the person in the front row is feeling. What you’re feeling now, and the person you may reach with your words five years from now-that's why you write poetry."

He flips on the overhead projector and I immediately recognize the words projected onto the wall. It's the piece he performed at the slam on our date. His piece about death.

"See this? I wrote this piece two years ago, after my parents died. I was angry. I was hurt. I wrote down exactly what I was feeling. When I read it now, I don't share those same feelings. Do I regret writing it? No. Because there's a chance that someone in this very room may relate to this. It might mean something to them."

He moves his mouse and the projector zooms in, highlighting one of the lines of his poem.

People don't like to talk about death because…

it makes them sad.

"You never know, someone in this very room might relate to this. Does talking about death make you sad? Of course it does. Death sucks. It's not a fun thing to talk about. But sometimes, you need to talk about it."

I know what he's doing. I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him as he looks directly at me. He glances back to his computer, highlighting another line.

If they only would have been prepared, accepted the inevitable, laid out their plans,

"What about this one? My parents weren't prepared to die. I was angry at them for this. I was left with bills, debt, and a child. But what if they would have had warning? A chance to discuss it, to lay out their plans? If talking about death wasn't so easy to avoid while they were alive, then maybe I wouldn't have had such a hard time dealing with it after they died."