the next day, knox stood at the front of john's classroom, his poem in hand.
"i wrote this poem for a certain someone. " knox began. charlie looked up from his desk with a grin. "hopefully, they'll figure out who they are."
knox quickly looked at parker before looking back at his poem. he began to read:
"i see a sweetness in her smile. blight light shines from her eyes. but life is complete; contentment is mine, just knowing that..." several students began to snicker, but parker watched knox in awe. "just knowing that she's alive."
knox crumpled his poem and walks back to his desk. charlie reached out to pat his friend on the back."sorry, captain. it's stupid."
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"no, no. it's not stupid. it's a good effort. it touched on one of the major themes, love. a major theme not only in poetry, but life." john smiled. "how about ms. mcallister goes next."
parker groaned as she got up from her desk, rory and scarlett quietly cheering her on. she made her way up to the front of the room, her poem held tightly in her hand.
"alright, well, this is my poem...yeah." parker mumbled. she began to read from the ink stained paper:
"if i were the sun and you were the sky, i'd never set. i'd hover above the edge of the water waiting for you to shine your stars on me so i could become bigger than what i am now. i am brighter when i'm with you."
after she was done reading, she looked up from the paper. rory and scarlett had big smiles on their faces, while knox looked at her with such admiration.
"that was wonderful, ms. mccallister." john said. parker smiled as she made her way back to her seat. "another love poem. i am sensing a theme. now, mr. hopkins, i noticed you laughing during mr. overstreet's poem and a little during ms. mccallister's. you're up."
hopkins got up from his seat and slowly walked to the front of the class. he unfolded a piece of paper and read: "'the cat sat on the mat.'" which earned chuckles from the class.
"congratulations, mr. hopkins. yours is the first poem to ever have a negative score on the pritchard scale. we're not laughing at you, we're laughing near you. i don't mind that your poem had a simple theme. sometimes the most beautiful poetry can be about simple things,like a cat, or a flower or rain. you see, poetry can come from anything with the stuff of revelation in it. just don't let your poems be ordinary. now who's next?"
john approached todd's desk, who had a visible look of panic and distress.
"mr. anderson, i see you sitting there in agony. come on, todd, step up. let's put you out of your misery."
todd nervously licked his lips. "i, i didn't do it. i didn't write a poem."
"mr. anderson thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing. isn't that right, todd? isn't that your worst fear?" he looked down at todd, who avoided eye contact. "well, i think you're wrong. i think you have something inside of you that is worth a great deal."
