The First Time They Give You

the first time they give you

the first time they give you
a real pen – not the eraser pens
that manage to breed bigger
messes – but a real pen…the first time
they give you one of those
they tell you to draw
only one line through the future
mistakes, that there is no more
going back for you.

the first time they give you
a real pen, they ask for 250-words-
or-less essays to calculate
a moment, describe a point-of-view,
a favorite childhood memory
in blue or black, cursive,
double-spaced, because there is
no more going back for you.

by the time they give you
your first real pen, they will have
forgotten how you graduated into
sharpened pencils – by letting go
of 72 durable markers, 24
melting crayons, and 12 pods
of permanent paint
.

Yi-Ching Lin

Posted over on her site Yi's Bits on "Healthy Doses"