Here Poem by Tyler Lashbrook

You stumble through the hallways
carrying your most precious possessions -
Your purse, your books, calculators, notes.

The people around you could be talking about anything.
What they did last weekend,
that test they are ill-prepared for next class.

Perhaps that special someone who asked them to prom.

It is nothing to you,
Just a cluttered mass of statements
and transactions from one stranger to the next.

You know this feeling all too well,
the building anxiety of your solitude
in a hall filled with peers.

It’s the feeling of butterflies that bounce
off the walls of your stomach
Like a rubber ball dancing around a small,
closed-in room.

Still you walk
and wait to be acknowledged in this concrete jungle
but your insignificance is unworthy of attention.

I know this, you know this.

You find yourself at the doorstep of your class,
take that long, enigmatic journey
to your seat, fittingly in the very back corner of the room

and wait

for your teacher to call your name.
And in this moment is your one chance
to elucidate your existence.