Wild card

AHHHHHHH!!!!! So we are preparing for finals and my head is spinning. I'm totally Freaking out about them. I mean, my grades are good and I'm a smart girl. But still, how can someone act so calm when we're about to be tested on EVERYTHING we've learned. I can do it.I can't believe I only have one more English class before my final.... Wow.

I wrote this poem for funzzies. It's sorta long...

"Wild Card"


They took you from the jungle,
Away from a life that was all your own,
A world that was
Lost to the human race,
Where you didn't know the taste
Of foul reality,
Or of the existence of tragedy.

A home in the jungle,
Made entirely of finger prints,
And the sweet,
Intoxicating smell of coconut lotion.
Where the trees could bend and twist,
Showing their raw bark,
And the strength of standing
Completely on their own.
Where the rivers swerve and duck,
Crystal clear waters show their identity,
And those who seek direction,
Follow the yearning whispers of waves
On sandy shores.

They took you from the jungle,
Calling it a rescue of the soul,
Spitting dates and times,
17 years,
204 months,
6234 days,
Everything you knew,
Printed on a single page,
Double spaced in sticky back ink.

They gave you stale bread,
And opinions to chew on,
A metal cup,
Filled to the brim,
With lies and tragedy.
Making you take hard sip after hard sip,
Leaving a stinging pain in your throat.
They tied you down,
And cut your past,
Put you through a copy machine,
Assigned you a number,
Laid you down in a bed made from regret,
With crippling memories as starched sheets.

When they took you from the jungle,
They expected you to break,
With culture shock foaming at your mouth,
Change shaking your very diaphragm,
And the weight of the world,
As the weight of your breath.
But you learned something in the jungle,
You learned scraped knees and broken bones,
Failure and pain,
But with every mistake that scarred your name,
You wore it on your skin.
As you opened new stripes
For every misfortune that you owned,
You wore them like a coat.
They grew and darkened
With every lesson that was shoved down your throat.

But time,
Time made you that picturesque
Image of an urban tiger,
Praying on street lights,
And taking cool drinks
From the reflections of skyscrapers.

You watched them cage your trees,
And bottle your river,
To sell on hot mid-morning days
For a dollar sixty-eight.
They tore down your home of finger prints,
Leaving them in a pile,
Mixed in with milk carton missing faces.
 "Saving" the jungle,
Like they did you.

When it was gone,
You tattooed the jungle
On the back of your hand,
And wore your tiger stripes,
Away from a life that was all your own,
They tried to strip you of everything you were,
But,
You held on.
Aware of the fight,
That you were the last piece of wild,
Anyone will see.