22 Poems by Rebecca

'The Signing'

22 Poems

to be judged

all because

of the signing

Mandi POV

I signed her up! No matter what she says she can’t back down now.

Rebecca POV

How could Mandi do this? We were just becoming so close. She knows I hate being judged so why does she think my poems can be judged as well? I don’t want my poems to be judged, because they are seeing me. I don’t want to be judged because of my looks, but by just me poems alone. Why would Mandi sign me up?

I ran into the kitchen and Mandi was there. I couldn’t tell if I was angry or sad and something told me that Mom and Mandi couldn’t tell either because they looked at me with both sympathy and fear.  “Mandi, ho could you sign me up for a poem contest?”

“I…”

“You what?” I could feel tears burning up in my eyes.

“Beck, you looked so happy and brave in choir and I thought you still would be.”

“Well I’m not. I’m not happy and I’m not brave.”

Silence. My mother broke it. “Mandi, how could you do something without consulting Rebecca first, let alone me? And Rebecca, I think it would be a great experience doing a poem contest. So calm down. If you make it into the next round you could win 1,000 dollars, then if you make it into the round after that you could win 5,000 dollars and if you win the whole thing you could win 10,000 dollars on top of that 6,000 dollars. We could use the money, sweetie.”

“Fine. Which poem did you sign in, Mandi?”

“All of them.”

“All 22?”

“Yeah.”

“Those poems are very personal you should have asked me we could have done this together.”

I ran out of the kitchen crying and hopped into my bed. The only words running through my head were my mother’s. “We could use the money.” And we really could. We have trouble paying bills and Mandi and I have college in three or four years. I decided to do the contest. We could use the money.