Monday Morning Memory

Since I so enjoyed the little trip down memory lane regarding socks in the pool, I thought I'd share another random memory. Maybe I'll make it a thing: every Monday morning, post a random memory.

In 10th grade creative writing, I wrote a poem about a homeless man dying on a bench one winter morning. It was called "All But One." Every stanza ended with "all but one." It was fancy literary device, and I was quite proud out it. The last stanza told about how everyone woke up from their warm beds that morning. All but one. My friends thought it was so awesome, it made them all cry, and they demanded my teacher read it immediately. The next day, our lesson in creative writing was about avoiding sentimentality in writing. He urged us, at this stage of our writing at least, to avoid topics like dead babies, car accidents, and homeless people. The message didn't fully take, in high school I wrote stories about a girl's mom who had an affair then died, an old woman who sat alone in a sad corner forgotten by her family, and two kids who almost died as a direct result of defacing a haunted tree. But I have never written another poem or story about a homeless man.