EXTRAS: THE SHATTERED DREAMS OF A GIFTED CHILD

THE SHATTERED DREAMS OF A GIFTED CHILD

also known as “The Brown Box”

Provided by Leslie Staven

He always wanted to explain things.

But no one cared.

Sometimes he would draw and it wasn’t anything.

He wanted to carve it in stone and write it in the sky.

He would lie out on the grass and look up at the sky.

And it would be only the sky and him,

And the things inside him that needed saying.

And it was after that the he drew the picture.
it was a beautiful picture.

He kept it under his pillow and would let no one see it.

And he would look at it every night and think about tit.

And when it was dark, and his eyes were closed, he could still see it.

It was all of him.

And he loved it.

When he started school he brought it with him.

Not to show anyone, but just to have it with him like a friend.

It was funny about school.

He sat at a square brown desk like all the other square brown desks.

And he thought it should be red.

And his room was a square, brown room like all other rooms.

He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, with his arm still and his feet flat on the floor,

Stiff,

With the teacher watching and watching.

The teacher came and spoke to him.

She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys.

He said he didn’t like them.

And she said it didn’t matter!

After that he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about the morning.

And it was beautiful.

The teacher came and smiled at him.

“What’s this?” she said. “Why don’t you draw something like Ken’s drawing?

Isn’t that beautiful?”

After that his mother bought him a tie.

And he always drew airplanes and rocketships like everyone else.

And he threw away the old picture.

And when he lay out alone looking at the sky,

It was big and blue and all of everything.

But he wasn’t anymore.

He was square inside.

And brown.

And his hands were stiff.

And he was like everyone else.

And the things inside him that needed saying didn’t need it anymore.

It had stopped pushing.

It was crushed.

Stiff.

Like everyone else.

This poem was written by a high school senior and given to his teacher.

The teacher was surprised.

It is not known today if the poem is actually the boy’s work.

He committed suicide.