ode

My senior year of high school, we studied Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and got an assignment to write an ode of our own to some kind of inanimate object. We weren't supposed to say explicitly in the poem what exactly we were talking about - my teacher wanted the class to guess. I wrote an ode to a piece of paper.

Your brightness astounds me and calls me to you.
You’re a beacon, guiding the way for my openness.
What are you calling me to do?
It seems you always want more from me.
I’m never quite sure where you’re taking me,
or what I have to do to get there.

What do you think about me
when I cast all my deepest thoughts onto you?
Your spaces are straight and welcoming-
They envelop my words and keep them safe
until I am ready to see them again.
You draw them out of me and
You carry my stories.

Sometimes it seems that I’m not satisfying you.
There’s always something missing.
You’re always wanting to take more than I have to give.
Sometimes you exhaust my mind-
you take everything from me
and you often leave me blank and speechless,
As you once were.

Pulling and prodding away at me,
Analyzing my every thought and every idea-
Sometimes you only add to my chaos.
Sometimes you help take it away.
But you’re always there,
Always asking, searching, wanting me, showing me
that you are the only one that will always be there.

Perhaps they all want the truth,
But that is something I only give to you.
Or rather, you take it from me and distort it
into something abstract, meaningless to them
And everything to me.
Perhaps the truth is that I am distorted and meaningless
But concrete. And tangible.
And sometimes that solid, substantial truth
Is all I have.