Sometimes I sit in my room
and I feel like my walls are closing in
But this makes me feel like a hack,
because everyone and their grandmother has said this
I don’t know, maybe I am a hack
Sometimes I choke on the words
that I wish I could muster the courage to say
And sometimes I say them anyway
Only to apologize for how I feel
Just to spare others
Sometimes I think about punching somebody
I don’t mean that I want to punch somebody
I just think about a specific instance
When he pushed me too far
And I couldn’t help myself
Sometimes I try to rationalize this
By saying that I’m not a violent person
And maybe he had it coming
But then, when I really think about it
Maybe I’m the bad one, and I have something coming
Ian Greenleaf is in the tenth grade at Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School. He was inspired to write by a few of the poems included in our last issue, specifically “My Rain.” He loves reading experimental fiction, and writing both prose and poetry.