I’d like to introduce my guest writer for this post. Will O’Neal is a current student in my Creative Writing class and a truly remarkable young poet. His wordmithing talent and his imaginative reach are quite impressive, so I asked if I could share his most recent poem “Clean Slate” on Eden.Babel…

Enjoy. 

---

With one fluent swipe of a hand, it’s gone

Non-existent

It was an idea, then breathed into creation

Now forever obliterated.

With one careless fling of an arm,

It was all destroyed

With nothing left, except the faded view

Of what it once was.

It’s ironic they call it dry

‘Cause of all the rich and wonder-drenched ideals

That were swept aside

All the emotional words,

And Truth-filled phrases

Erased and turned to blackened and lifeless ashes.

 

If only we could amplify it to a larger scale

Patch up, erase, and destroy our mistakes and blemishes,

Perfect our lives

So that we seem pristine

As newborn children,

In all their innocent infancies

Wipe our slate clean

So that we are perfectly polished, Photo-shopped people

Hiding behind a facade of fantasized features

But then without our mistakes,

We all become the same,

A utopian human race.

Our faults are what set us apart

And how we handle them is what defines us

So let’s not destroy our mistakes;

Just learn from them,

And leave the Dry Erasers for Expo Markers

And games of Hangman.