A Cucumber and a Reflection on Art
The knife deftly sliced the cucumber
Her eyes glanced at the hands
Of the clock
Pressing down she carved
The thin transparent discs of
Green
She felt the coolness of the cells
Against her dry hands
And she looked for her glass of
Water
Stumbling to satisfy her thirst
Her acute awareness of the knife
In her flesh
Made her gasp
Droplets of red polluted the fresh green cells
And she drew her finger to her lips
And tasted the metallic red
She bit her lip in frustration
Slid the paper plate of green
Away and put the knife
In the sink
Her eyes blurred the bloodied green
And a tear ran down her nose
There was not another cucumber
Poetry is an outlet for me to express the person that is hidden deep inside myself. I am not usually dubbed “the artsy kid” at school – people who casually know me see me doing math and AP chemistry and decide that those two subjects represent me through and through. While I love science and plan to work in a chemistry or biology related field, I cannot ignore the part of me that loves to sit down and write a poem or paint a painting.
Art helps me to express myself in a way that science and math will never be able to do. I can put my happiness on paper in the form of soft words and smooth brush strokes. I can also show my anger in cacophonous diction and harsh splatters of bright paints. Poetry especially allows me to explore my feelings. The poem about the cucumber is not a literal story that happened to me, but rather a metaphor. It allowed me to express my thoughts on a mistake I made because I procrastinated. I wasted an opportunity that would not be given to me again – just like how the character in the poem wrecked her one cucumber. Yet the poem allowed me to put my mistake into perspective as well. After all, it is not the end of the world if you cannot serve a cucumber with your dinner!
I want people to read my work to understand who I am. I am not a one-sided person who only loves to do homework and read "Scientific American". I want people to criticize my poems and to get something out of them. I don’t want to hear my friends tell me my writing is “good” – I want to know how they feel about it.
People need to realize that art is not only found in the hall at school where all the art classes are located. Some of the most artistic people are hidden under shells of science and math. For this reason, we should all explore our artistic side. You might have decided as far back as first grade that being an artist was out of the question; you can’t draw straight lines…. Well I’ve got news for you: Art is inside every human being, no matter who you are, and so what if you can’t draw? Choose a different medium and get started expressing yourself!