Cup of tea to my right. Record player to my left. Cell phone off, and incense on. The same journal I've used since 6th grade, and a pen, front and center. Welcome to the battleground of my next masterpiece. The constant fight between my judgmental mind and my fleeting heart occur here, on the floor of my dimly lit bedroom. Usually, a guitar is laying around somewhere too but not today. This time, I'll have to create my piece of art without it. I truly try to wrap my entire mind around this poem, but seriously, how long will that last? The events unfolded as follows.
I roll side to side trying to think of what to write about. Clearly, the judgmental side of me is taking control, because it seems I usually have a plethora of ideas, but not this time; none of them are good enough. My mind begins to wander. My bedroom is so boring, I think. Why are my walls grey? Elephants are grey, but they aren't boring. Elephants can be cool though, like the Buddhist ones or whatever. I run to the computer to search "cool symbolic elephant" on Google. I find one. Wow, that would look really good as a tattoo, I think. Tattoos hurt. But it is totally worth it cause they're awesome, but they still hurt. Pain. What is true pain? I ponder this thought. Wait, stop. I have to write a poem. Mondays mornings are true pain. Losing that lacrosse game to Hinsdale was pretty painful too. Woah. Epiphany. I'm amazing. I print out the picture of the elephant, run back to my room and tape it on the wall. I return to the floor and keep rolling. But these poem ideas are just not good enough, I think to myself. Yea, but this is English class I'm not trying to write an Emmy award winning song and I can hear that Chemistry homework calling for me. I make the decision that I'll try to make these far from perfect poem ideas as flawless as possible. I turn on some Brother Ali and Kanye to help me out. They are, of course, true poets.
The hard part is over. Once I get my pen moving, it doesn't usually stop.
Ten minutes later and I've struggled through the entire first draft of both poems and I've read them over to myself multiple times, putting stress on different words as I try to pull the most meaning out of them as possible.
Not going to lie though, these poems were harder to write than others. This time, I had one audience member in mind, Mr. Allen, a expert critic, and I've never been comfortable in front of small crowds. So I also made the decision that less is more. In later drafts, I would let the language speak, and allow the reader take what they want from it.
What surprises me about my thinking? Nothing really, except that I am way more distracted than I should be, but it's the distraction that leads me to the gold. What do I like about my thinking? Oh gawd, that is a horrible question. Nothing and everything. My brain is completely scattered, but I love getting lost in it. That's where my music/poetry comes from. It's also kind of an entertaining thought process. My mind must be doing something right because I always finish with a halfway decent product. What would I like to work better? Nothing, nothing at all. If my brain worked any better I would probably go crazy.
Writing these poems, affected more than my English grade. I am now seriously considering getting a symbolic elephant tattoo on the side of my ribs, I hate Monday mornings even more, and there is now a page in my journal, with two modest poems, that I have to look back on one day. The dynamic of my thinking is all over the place, but look what I got out of it.
What does Metacognition even mean anyway? Sorry, that was brain speaking.
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