Original Poem By Kristen Shryack

Key Slam Poem

I had this key to all my hopes and dreams.

It was colorful, big, and bright.

Each angled edge was drastic and defined.

The key unlocked so many phenomenal things.

I could do anything

While accomplishing everything.

But as I got older, that key got dull by words that were said to me

By things that were so called ‘reality.’

It was time to fit into the real world and that key didn’t fit into dreams.

There was a right way and a wrong way, no in between

If you didn’t follow commands, your life had no meaning

We were told ‘No’ repeatedly

And they were proud when we told them what they told us

However the rounded edges fit into the world, into conformity.

It was the same key but it had a new purpose.

Changing its form made me more than nervous

It had to fit and turn on demand.

Anything without logic was officially banned.

My creativity was lost and nowhere to be found.

My key no longer fit where it was originally bound.

It feared to be sharp with my ideas and thoughts

It became dull with cliché terms and things we were taught.

There was more to becoming the rounded and dull

The reasons ran dark and deep

Rules that conformity would hold and keep

Memories with the sharp key seemed so much greater

Fate hadn’t come until much later

In a time when we all had those rigid edges yet to be tamed

Before our imagination was forced to burn in flames.

Society was the new lock and creativity was tossed aside.

The use for creativity had long ago died

But I miss those days as a child

Before I had to awaken

Before the world took me by hand and my perspective was shaken       

What ifs no longer dance inside my head

That nonsense was soon put to shreads

A wish became bizarre

A key to unlock that was no more

Boogeyman Not So Bad

Hiding under your bed, lays the Boogeyman, not to scare you or harm you, but instead for a safe place to rest and lay his head at night. We humans think everything has to do with us, but the Boogeyman doesn’t have any interest in you in or your family. He likes the bed above him and the soft carpet soft against his fur, similar to a tree canopying up above or grass on the ground. Your hard plastic toys that you’ve shoved under the bed are a reminder of where rocks used to be. What happened to that home in the forest? Trees were cut down, vegetation was exiled. Buildings and new creations came in. This was his home before it was ever yours.