Free Verse

Before my high school graduation, my classmate Angie, who had purchased a half-page "look at me and my friends so cute and loyal" ad in the yearbook, said to me, "You write poems, right, Sylvia? Would you write a poem about friendship and graduation for our ad?" I'd never before been commissioned to write a piece, and I was not going to let this opportunity slip through my prematurely writing-cramped hand. After about six or seven sleepless nights, I realized I knew nothing about friendship, nor graduation (because it hadn't happened yet), and that I was no one's friend--just a lot of people's poet. I was the People's Friendless Poet. And I said to dear, sweet Angie, "Wha? You weren't going to pay me?"