All Nonfiction
- Bullying
- Books
- Academic
- Author Interviews
- Celebrity interviews
- College Articles
- College Essays
- Educator of the Year
- Heroes
- Interviews
- Memoir
- Personal Experience
- Sports
- Travel & Culture
All Opinions
- Bullying
- Current Events / Politics
- Discrimination
- Drugs / Alcohol / Smoking
- Entertainment / Celebrities
- Environment
- Love / Relationships
- Movies / Music / TV
- Pop Culture / Trends
- School / College
- Social Issues / Civics
- Spirituality / Religion
- Sports / Hobbies
All Hot Topics
- Bullying
- Community Service
- Environment
- Health
- Letters to the Editor
- Pride & Prejudice
- What Matters
- Back
Summer Guide
- Program Links
- Program Reviews
- Back
College Guide
- College Links
- College Reviews
- College Essays
- College Articles
- Back
Under the White Jasmine Tree
There lay she and she
Under the white jasmine tree
Sharing a cup of bubble tea,
A polka dot blouse
blue skies and white clouds,
tears, playful banter, and vows
All the trinkets and baubles we wear upon our youths.
There stood the boy
In the same class yet a different world
Ushered out of childhood by the impatient years,
Tall, graceful, with a pair of chiseled hands
that fashioned soul and song from color and canvas.
With her little heart folded into a paper boat
She sets sail for adulthood while the blinking stars look on
With oars in hand and dreams on deck
She sings the lyrics to her heart’s ballad out loud
Dreaming that somewhere beyond the misty shroud
The boy would be waiting on the shore, smiling proud.
But wherever his inky dark eyes were fixed
She was never far.
They spoke heart-to-heart, saw eye-to-eye
Barrierless, genderless as two ferns in a forest
Yet the heart of his eyes never shined
Into the eye of her heart.
He was but another side of a hollow polygon
She knew that nobody but she could color in.
Still she sings her feeble song
And the broken melody limps along
Until her voice grows thin, keels over and dies.
Now not even the cicadas cry
Of those sweltering summers
When she and she still lay
Under the white jasmine tree.
This is a poem about my personal experience, of amiable youths teetering between the edges of friendship, love, and loss.