The Teenager: A Poetry Collection

Poem 6: Tell Me A Story

Shield me from the darkness,

Just for a minute,

Take me out of this world and its mundaneness,

Just for a minute,

Make my eyes light up in wonder,

Make my heart race with exhilaration,

Make me laugh at the evil villain’s blunders,

Make me snort at his evil thugs in derision,

Knit together a thick, coloured cloak of words,

From the ones that pour from your mouth,

Stronger and thicker than the cloaks of animals or birds,

So I can wear it to keep the pain, the grief, the real world out,

Stories keep our world together,

They’re a warm grasp in a cold winter’s night,

They remind us that love is forever,

And the larger our loss, the stronger we can fight,

They let us into glistening, breath-taking world in a rush,

They make us laugh, they make us sting,

They assure us someone is always suffering worse than us,

That there is always something more to lose, so we can’t have lost everything,

Everyone needs a story,

Everyone needs to have the surrounding darkness chased away,

Everyone needs to jump in to someone else’s world; leave their worry,

So tell us a tale and let’s forget yesterday,