From One Being to Another~ By Nia Brown

Listen to the radio
as you lay in the grass.
Neon colors are seen behind closed eyelids
as you face the sun,
as the dahlias tickle your feet.
You weave through consciousness.
Hush, as it tells you stories
of being and to be
and you dream
as if you yourself went from
germ
to plant
and it is an intaglio into your brain
and converted you into a believer
of her
Its reckoning.
And perhaps you’ll begin to understand more about the gospel truth
until the honk of a car pulls you from her
and it disappears.


Author Bio:
I started writing when I was in fifth grade. My teacher, Mr. Robinson, decided to not teach anything that year but writing. Some of my classmates wrote stories but I decided to write poems. I suppose I got pretty good at it because all the teachers started to pay attention to me. I hated it so I decided to keep it under wraps until seventh grade. I wrote about pain even though I was young. I hated life and my work reflected it. My teachers worried but I kept that under wraps too. My mother didn’t find out about my writing until eighth grade. This was long after the majority of my grade school knew about it. This was even long after my class decided to use one of my poems for the Black History Month performance. She had received a call from my teacher at the time, Mr. Jones, that I had decided I would not write anything for him to see or write for our eighth grade graduation. After grade school, I continued my writing. Since I was a new person at a new school, I did not want to be known for it. Yet, during my sophomore year, Mrs. Teague announced there would be a poetry contest in Saint Louis. I entered, although I didn’t get much more than an Honorable Mention. I tried again the next year and received the same.