Second Place Senior Poetry

Katherine Palmateer

Kelly Road Secondary

Inner-city Rhythms

Went for a walk today
through the beats
and the streets
of a metropolitan melody;
remembering a time
when no one
could find me.
Invisible
in the shadows
and doubts
of a city.
Searching
for something
resembling myself
or
what little
I
remember
of me.
Scrawl of graffiti
on rusted brick building
gives rise
to ancient memory.
The alleyway
with stanied pavement
and
discarded injection
in
dirty puddle.
The manifestations
of
disturbed thinking
through
alcoholic violence.
Footsteps
surrounded by
broken glass...
a shattered past
and
a young woman
thankful
for an abandoned blanket
on
most glacial night.
I see...
the silhouette was me -
an adolescent catastrophe
making her way
down Granville Street
to the perennial sea.
...That girl was me...
And I remember
feeling
like I was walking
a mile
in every footstep,
speaking
volumes in every
word.
My thoughts painted
the sky in
swirls of
green malarkey
outlining high
upon a mountain
of secrets
where once...
I revealed myself
in ragged
insecurity.