Riddle Our Fears

This time in poetry class at Waters, homeroom 305 created riddle poems inspired by Sylvia Plath’s poem “Metaphor” which begins, “I’m a riddle in nine syllables.” Students guessed at Plath’s riddle, then had a hand in creating their own riddle poems for their classmates to figure out! The students focused on writing poems about their fears—physical and abstract.

Ms. Aguilar 305

Silence, A Painful Silence Yet Calming After So Long, So Much Noise, Arya A.

A longing for sound, conversation, anything.
Missing what was and never will be again.
An empty chair, an empty room.
Nothing but sorrow and a cloudy day without light.
So far and yet so close at the same time, I feel at home.

Fears Abraham C.

Released from the end
A flying rocket
Wings of a dove
A blue pond of scales
No good intentions
Tracks down the best
Stops it’s movement
A falling rock
Destruction of a bomb
First goes to last

What is my fear? Benjamin C.

A big red 69% one off or a passing grade
Instead I am an 84% or a 96
With the scale of grade book trying to right itself
It is a teasing scold from my sister that cuts like a cheese grater.

A reminder of what I will never be
When I say I can’t do it or give up
My fear you are a cold hard path that I am regimented into walking
Life that has nothing that I want.

But you are avoidable
yet inevitable.
The thing that must be faced is you
and perhaps I could vanquish it.

Failure Oscar E.

Eyes looking down on me on my mistakes just watching always.
A clock begins to run just runs & runs without stopping and there’s
no stopping it.
An unknown what if? What if all of it is a fail all nothing.
Falling away falling into a pit away from all I’ve done
away from what I worked to achieve away from him.

Untitled Leena H.

My chest is pounding
My heart is racing
My brain is shutting down
and all I can think of is everything I’m going
to miss
In a flash I see my life in pictures
I take my last breath
The last thing I see is one bubble
rise up to the surface
then black
If only that bubble was me
I could rise to the surface
all at once.

Heights Elijah K.

It’s a looming space, sucking you in
It’s a hunter, shadowing you at every turn
It’s the wind blowing around you,
A cage, trapping you in
A trap, one wrong move and you’re dead
It’s breathing, it’s your daily life
It’s a blanket, encircling you everywhere

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