Why a box?
Wouldn’t a pyramid or a sphere
Even an oatmeal cylinder
Be perfectly content to take its place?
For shapes can’t complain
People can but usually don’t
When faced with a subtle grace
By authority
It’s a strange world we live in
The very phrase, “thinking outside the box”!
What a cliché!
But it still resides
In most of us
Clawing inside minds
Tendrils polluting thoughts
Like oil coating water
As if
Humankind has never thought of
Plastic Ziploc bags
Or embroidery purses
Though they fill the same purpose
Ideas swim like drowning fish
Eternity, no death in sight
Inside a murky, rank mush
Of a reheated, artificial substance
Crowded by twins, triplets, quintuplets
And more
A gathering of minds
Albeit purged of righteousness
Like sardines
In a soda bottle
Thoughts reminiscent
Of vegetables and roadkill
Soft, like a butter knife
Slicing through cheddar cheese
Apparently
Whispers of Arrauber Bierdeckel cheese
Have never brushed their ears
Populated by clichés, replications
Of a single, once original thought
That fell into obscurity
Never to return
Into the twin of Cygnus X
Carelessly named Cygnus Y by an emaciated mind
For apparently
Black hole names
Are more unique than human names
Though nothing stays unique for long
Sucking in most, if not all
Minds
Not even enlightened thoughts
Can escape the suction
Of the black-hole-like soup can
Visions swirling in its ambiguous depths
Mingling
Jumbling
In its distorted quest for unity
But all places
No matter how bizarre
How peculiar
How atypical
Have a way out
Yes! My thoughts
Have grasped the sharp, serrated
Edge of the can
Wincing as the metal slices
Through the pale, delicate skin
That has not even seen
A drop of sun
Still not letting go
They clamber, clumsily
Up the cavernous hollow
Echoing with the thoughts
That have lost all hope below
My mind has miraculously
Fought against a black hole
And won
Eagerly, my mind drags itself out
Straightening up
Hoping to take a breath of fresh mountain air
And frowns
As the stench hits it
For the people
Have obviously not bothered to recycle
I ponder this newest, unusual dilemma
How
How to get out of
A garbage bag?
Michelle Chen
Age 12, Grade 7
Hunter College High School
Gold Key