Wimpy Paper

it's very important for me to be wild
to be able to be wild.
i mentor a girl in middle school, here in provo.
the people like to title the girls we hang out with "at-risk."
but aren't we all at risk, people?
anyway.
we do journal writing together every week, ten minutes. i say, don't think. just go. write about whatever you want. vomit in ink.
she looks at me and shifts uncomfortably. bites her lip.

the other week she proudly presented me with a list of topics to write about.
"you can add topics, too," she says. "just nothing about the future."
i look in her big eyes and i wonder where the fear keeps on coming from. she is opening to me more, when we can just talk alone. she enjoys simple things, like good music and painting her nails. i forgot how much i had in common with fourteen year olds.

i try to tell her to just keep her pen moving, even if she wants to write blah blah blah, just keep the hand going.
she looks up and shifts uncomfortably. a spurt of a little laugh to ease the tension.
in our ten minutes she usually gets out about a half a page--she is thinkin.

my pages have scribbles and things scrawled big
pigs and penguins and flying and free.
i wish someone would have opened this world to me when i was fourteen. let me have a space to do whatever i wanted with no rules and my own big decisions.
it's important for me to allow myself to be wild, even
if it is just on a piece of wimpy paper.