Pictures and Poems

As he stood there, eyes intent upon the paper in his hands, he cried. He cried for all that he had lost throughout the years, and he remembered.
He remembered coming home when he was five, so happy.
"Look Mommy, look what I did," and a paper, much like the one he held now, eleven years later, stained and wrinkled, held in grubby little hands.
On the paper where a picture and a poem, and both picture and poem about the sun, and the trees, and the beautiful, innocent world of a five-year-old. "That`s wonderful, darling," his mother said, and she framed it.
And he cried, and he remembered.
He remembered being ten and wondering why all the other boys his age had a father and he didn`t. He made a picture and wrote a poem, and both picture and poem where about fathers and how wonderful it would be to have one. His teacher liked it, and his friends liked it. He took it home. "Look Mom, see what I did." And his mother cried, and said, "That`s wonderful, darling." She didn`t frame it.
And he cried, more softly now, and he remembered recent times.
He remembered when he was thirteen. He remembered the forlorn feeling of bewilderment he expirienced when the actions of others and new emotions he felt could not be explained in one simple phrase. He drew a picture, and he wrote a poem, and both picture and poem spoke of feeling lost and lonely in a huge, rapidly changing world. His teacher told him to write about something less depressing, his friends couldn`t understand it. He took it home, didn`t show it to his mother, and didn`t frame it.
And still he cried, his tears nearly spent, and he remembered when he turned sixteen. He still couldn`t understand the world, or why he was on it. He couldn`t understand why children were starving, why people were killing each other, or where he fit in. So, he drew a picture, and he wrote a poem, and here he stood, feeling tired, and unworhty, and hating himself. He never called out, never asked to help, and never was offerder any.
And he cried no more...
That`s where the body of Tommy Johnson was found. He had always been considered a strange boy, always drawing pictures, always writing poems. He was found in his bedroom, the delicate veins in his wrists cut. By his body there lay a paper. On the paper were a picture and a poem, and both picture and poem were about a sixteen-year-old boy who was dead, and would never hurt anybody, and would never be confused, and would never cry or remember, again.

Alma Ramirez, 16 years old.
Publicado en la revista Maize (Notebooks of Xicano Art and Literature)
spring-summer 1982
volume 5 no. 3-4