16 Year Old Me: Poetry

Andrew O’Riordan

1/26/98 B Block

Theme for English III

The instructor said,

Go home and write

a page tonight.

And let that page come out of you-

Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it’s that simple?

I am sixteen, a student, born in San Diego.

I went to school in La Costa, then Solana Beach, then here,

to this high school on the hill above Mission Bay.

From my house I come to school, up the steps from Goshen,

past Freshman Alley, and to my locker, where I get my books for English,

walk to my class, sit down, and read this page.

It’s not easy to know what is true for me at sixteen, my age.

But I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear and learn.

Fellow students-I hear you: hear me-we talk on these pages with each other.

(I hear others too.) Me-who?

Well, I like to learn, experience, and try new things. I like warm weather and

being outside in nature, doing active things. I like to read, write, and listen to

other people’s stories and experiences, because they are the key to my own.

I like a kind words from my friends and smiles from strangers. I like jazz and

sleepy mornings and being anywhere, as long as it’s with good people.

I guess being an individual doesn’t make me not like the same things that you like.

So will my page be personal that I write?

Being me, it will be mine.

But it will be a part of everyone.

You are different-

yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.

That’s being human.

Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.

Nor do I often want to be a part of you.

But we are all connected with each other, that’s true.

As I learn about you,

I guess you learn about me

although you’re different, we are the same to a degree.

This is my page for English III.