Excerpt from my creative writing class portfolio:

"Is there any scene more typical of high school romanticism than the image of a lone teenage boy lying in his bed, unable to sleep due to the cute songs and memories of bright smiles running through his head? No. There is not. It was just such a scene that prompted me to write this piece.

It was about 1:00 a.m. when I was rolling under my covers with the urge to write a song. “Hearts” by Alex Day had been stuck in my head for about an hour, which, in case you don’t know, happens to be an adorable little ditty about a normal crush. That was what I felt my life was at that point – some sort of cutesy high school romantic comedy. Despite all that, I still felt that there was a part of me which knew there was something more than the cliché.

Before I knew it, I was hopped up in my futon with my laptop open in front of me, typing up those first two lines. I don’t want to sound clichéd here, but I don’t want this to come out wrong now. It was one of the easiest and cleanest writings that I had done, because I knew almost exactly what I wanted to say before I even began to put it to paper word processor. When I was finished, I took ten seconds of silence, and then added the title. My title is the favorite part of this poem as far as my writing goes. It shows that while this is a love song, it is also a song that acts as a thank you to a close friend who was, and still is, always there.

I wanted to use words that I felt properly conveyed the emotions I was feeling at that moment, so most of the editing was minimal the next morning. I removed some of the awkward phrasing (bouncing multiple times from “damn” to “darn” and back again, changing some instances of “your” to “this,” etc.) and edited some of the lines for emotional benefit (I changed most of the second verse in a later draft). I received some heart feedback, which confirmed that the emotions came out the right way, from my peers in creative writing class, such as Ms. Wright, Micaela, and – cough, cough – the person about whom it was written in the first place (Apparently Josh is calling her “Norma” now).

I feel that this piece was a real risk for me, for multiple reasons. The first reason is that prior to this class, I usually stuck to prose as opposed to poetry. This was the first step to writing poetry, which led to some of my later pieces such as “Trotting Down the Line” and “Liquid Pocketwatch.” Another reason that this felt like such a risk was that it was a more emotional piece, which I let leak to those outside my close circle of friends. I even showed the person for whom it was written. Sure, I didn’t tell her it was about her, but I’m fairly certain she had some clue. Your first baby steps are important in regards to such risks. This finally culminated in me submitting this piece to the STEM literary and art magazine, the Outlet.
Finally, I feel that this piece was a great representation of my voice, as the entire poem felt more like a personal monologue than anything I had ever written. If I were to speak directly to the person about whom it was written, this is what I would say, which I felt as a sign of success in writing. The poem was told from a first-person perspective, with a strong emotional tone. It was something which I wanted to write, as opposed to something I felt I was forced to write. This helped me break out and start to write more emotional pieces later on in the class, such as “Liquid Pocketwatch.”"