A Night To Remember

Three: Poem Panic!

With the fair quickly approaching, the Poetry club meetings became less about poetry and more about preparations. I tried my best to squeeze in time for club activities, but we found ourselves getting pretty busy. The club was supposed to be the place to make the hellish school day worth the wait; not even more work.

Walking into the classroom, a scene that I grew accustomed to greeted me. Sho was helping Anne paint a banner with watercolors. Scrawled across the top, and then properly re-written with marker, were the words; The Poetry Club. I was confident that the writing itself took longer than necessary.

In the corner of the room, Allan and Asher were sitting on the ground; diligently writing on a big piece of poster board. Across the top they wrote: "Do you love creative writing, poetry, and literature? Join the Poetry club!" and they seemed to be working on a list of reasons to join, as well as explain things we did and what we offered in the space below. I looked around, puzzled. Where was Raymond?

As if reading my mind, Asher noticed me enter the room and spoke. "Ray went to the auditorium. Some theater stuff, I guess," they commented. Allan shot up, surprised.

"Shit, that was today?!" he said, dropping the marker he was holding as Asher nodded. Sometimes I forgot Allan was a theater kid; even when almost all of his creative writing was about his work-in-progress musical. Quickly dashing out of the room, Asher was left alone to work on the poster.

I quietly sat next to Asher and picked up the marker Allan had dropped. "Need a hand?" I offered, glancing at them. They smiled softly and nodded. I continued coloring in some flowers that were drawn in the margins.

"The poster looks great, you and Allan definetly did a good job," I said gently, breaking the silence. Asher smiled, still writing as they spoke.

"Thanks, but it really isn't all that," they said with a nervous laugh. They shook their head slightly, capping the marker they were using as they glanced at the poster.

"No, it is," I replied, not backing down from this. "The fact you got this much done in such little time is amazing."

Asher's face heated up a bit and they looked to the side. "Thanks," they said quietly. I could tell they were gonna say something else before I noticed the time and beat them to it.

"Shit, already?" I muttered to myself, standing up from my place on the floor. I was hoping to get in some actual poetry time today; this whole fair thing threw me into a bit of a poem panic. I made my way to the front of the classroom. I knocked on the desk, just loud enough to be noticeable. Sho and Anne perked up, glancing at me.

"Okay, we're almost out of time," I began, glancing at everyone. "Did everyone complete yesterday's assignment?" I asked. Sho and Anne cleaned up the paints and set the banner on a table to dry. Asher put away their markers and put the poster in a closet. Everyone got seated at a desk. As I watched everyone sit down, I felt really proud of myself for having come this far. I made an entire club and all these new friends... It made me really happy.

"Alright, find a partner and share your poems," I said with a smile. Sho and Anne started talking and sharing, Asher nervously fiddled with a pencil as they looked at their paper. I sat down next to them and slid my poem onto their desk.

"Can we exchange poems?" I asked.