I'm 19 years old.
4 years ago I picked up a magazine.
4 years ago I started a dream
to be published
to be noticed
to be heard
in TeenInk where everything is a teenager's word.
My work is good,
no,
my work is GREAT
but ever since then, I guess it wasn't fate.
You see, I'm still waiting to see my name
a poem, a picture, a small fraction of fame.
Most of you agree, it's very difficult to get in.
You have to own spunk, creativity, some kind of small Nemo fin (the one that isn't normal looking).
I have emotion, metaphors,
closed mouths, open doors;
Almost everyone I know thinks my writing is GREAT!, AMAZING!, LOVELY!
One of them even said I could be the next Nikki Giovanni.
(I had to Google who that was; I'm pretty sure I spelled her name wrong)
And she's great,
I'm great
but I'm still waiting for that date
when I open my mailbox for a complimentary issue
because my name showed up, and then I might need a tissue.
I'll be so happy, so proud.
I'll say it with joy, I'll say it loud.
"Look at me world! My work was published!"
But I'm 19 years old and soon it will be too late
for that wish I make every year on my birthday cake.
There's no room for 20 year-olds in this magazine.
The younger youth are imaginative and potentially gleam.
I guess I'll never publish something worthy for everyone to see.
Unless this poem makes it in.
Oh, that will be quite the irony.