In Creative Writing, whenever we have a week to focus on our work, it generally means our Department Requirements are due soon. At this point, it’s common knowledge and once the words “Break at 3:00” are out in the open, we all know to get out our computers and start writing. 

The comfort of these weeks are unlike any other “rest weeks” I’ve had. Sitting in small circles on the rug or around school with all my best friends is entirely calming and revives my energy at the end of each day. It’s always a week full of plentiful laughs and bathroom breaks, before the work begins once more. The room will go silent as everyone delves into their respectable work, keyboards clacking just as loudly as mine is now. The soft, dilated breaths of everyone in the room, pulsating in and out of each individual’s throats synchronously.

One of the department requirements, Lit Crits, are my achilles heel; they are my weakness in all of Creative Writing, making these weeks extremely important to me. Lit Crits are essays based on the literary devices found within a poem, and using these literary devices we form our thesis. The jumbled up nonsense in my head will display itself on the page in clumped, uneven proportions I don’t seem to know how to organize; yet this past week I delved deeper into my analysis of my chosen poem and forced myself to sit at my seat until I wrote what I wanted to say. I ended up getting the best score I’ve ever gotten on a Lit Crit in my life, and I felt so accomplished when I saw my grade!

Below is a poem I wrote midway through the week, when I had started feeling more confident as well as improved in my writing. I attempted to capture the joy I had achieved in that week in this poem, to convey to all how joyful this feeling of self pride is.

Organized Chaos of Me

A faucet of words spills from my mouth, 

that I try to chew back up-

but the wild energy in my head demands attention-

so it calls to the crowd.

Waiting for it’s chance to spew itself into my thesis-

waiting for it’s chance to prove its nonsense can make sense.

It does.

Rankings of low are what seem to suit me best-

when it comes to my writing.

No hopes of higher grades excite me,

for there is no hope of them. 

Only now,

the mish-mash from within has mashed everything into the right place,

and the chaos I contain is organized into sections,

ready to pummel each word into its own category.

There is dedication and confusion,

passion and hate,

energy that’s drained-

And organized chaos within me.

This poem, just like my Lit Crits, still must obtain a lot of work to attain “excellence,” yet it conveys my excitement and how proud I was of myself in that moment. A feeling I hope to achieve more often throughout the “rest weeks” to come.