Remember when?

While enrolled at THINK Global School, students are encouraged to be creative during the course of their studies and travels. When the students document these thoughts, we are often delighted with the results. In her poem “Remember When?,” 10th grader Hannah C. provides her readers with a whimsical look back at the events of the 2012-13 school year.

 

Remember When?

I think in memories,

and I think in possibilities.

I think in “remember when”

and “just think, what if,”

Like remember

your first day at TGS or

the first time that video

convinced you there might be more

but also made you think

This school’s a scam

‘cuz it’s way too good to be true –

but what if I just don’t give a damn?’

Remember the first time

Jawed told you that

his toys were tanks

growing up

and Anat taught you to the difference

between Fatah and Hamas,

and you had to blink twice

before it sank in

that you didn’t know

much of anything?

And you started to imagine

what if we laid down

our arms and journalists

were at a loss ‘cuz

nowhere in the world

was there anyone

whose life was ended too early

by someone else’s gun.

Or remember when

every night at L’ecole,

Donny would wink at Maya,

flip a page in his pad,

take a deep breath and

begin, “Hoy tenemos!”

And remember when you were

staring down into the Devil’s Throat and

you wondered what was behind the mist?

Like what if all the fairies and

goblins and unicorns were

hiding right there and

sometimes they leaked out

in the form of rainbows or that kind

of inexplicable magic –

‘cuz you know what they

say ‘bout how the best things

are always just beneath your nose.

And remember when Gawa said

if you put together

Psy and Cho,

you get a psycho?

And what if they named

a trail after you,

do the math –

it’d be named “Psychopath?”

Remember getting cocky

with the spicy sauce

in Bhutan, igniting

a fire, hot on your tongue?

And wondering if

it was possible

to die from the burn?

Remember watching

Steve Kruger talk with

his hands and his eyes

so animatedly

you started to wonder

what if this guy combusts

and all that’s left are

Broadway tickets and confetti?

And remember when

Nemo blew flurries of white

and you stuck your head out

the window only to be greeted with bite?

What if eight years from now,

Martino and Stephanie

have three baby Nicks

running around,

What if that sci-fi movie

wasn’t a lie

and right now, we

aren’t actually alive

What IF,

what if every color in the world

was turned upside down

so the sky was pink and smiles

were either blue or brown?

Someone once told me,

“You can only ever connect the dots

looking backwards, never forwards.”

So when I say now,

what if you grow up to be

leaders and lifelong learners,

what if you say, I choose ethics over aesthetics,

and you say I choose peace over war,

and we all say, we know what’s right

for the world cuz we learned it here,

I know that then

in five, ten, fifty years,

I’ll send you a message,

in scribbly blue pen,

two words full of tears,

that reads

“Remember when?”