A is for
Hannah Ferrara
A is for Apple, something we were taught to associate with the beginning of the alphabet
back in Pre-K. Or first grade, when they had to reteach it to you because your parents
weren’t concerned with teaching your basic literacy when the summer was for enjoying the
B is for Blue sky. Which is just confusing now that you think about it, because why did we
start off the alphabet with a fruit and now the second letter with a color? Now I’m stuck
associating the letter A with red, and B for Blue, so then what do we do for
C is for, I forget. I do not remember what we bullshitted for the third letter of the alphabet,
so I’ll make something up. C is for “Coming up with something for the third letter of the
alphabet.” Coming up with something, being creative, and then being told you’re just
D is for Different. Being told you are different for the first time in your very young life. And
depending on who you ask, it’s a good thing or a bad thing to be. It’s like
E is for Everything you’ve done up until now is based off that previous letter, previous word,
in the alphabet. When waiting for that special letter to come up because it was your
F is for your First name. Something that you felt has always defined you until you get into
high school and then they ask you what do you want to do with your life? Like for real life.
And you can kind of start to freak out a bit because why haven’t you
G is for Giving me the time to actually think about this with real expectations and let me
put in the facts and the statistics and economic down cline because let’s be
H is for Honest, how the fuck am–
I is for I wanted to be a veterinarian until I realized how god awful at math and science I am.
So… am I
J is for Just supposed to bullshit my way through my sophomore year because the new
thing I want to do is actually so ridiculous I might as well be
K is Kidding myself when I buy a shit ton of sketchbooks, markers, art supplies, attending
photography,
L is for Learning art history because how much does an art historian make? I told you I
wasn’t good at
M is for Math. Which I associated with the color blue.
N is for Not red. Because Math isn’t red, it’s blue. Now,
O is for Obviously I didn’t write this poem to debate about the color inanimate objects or
subjects, no I wrote this
P is for Poem, which I wrote to
Q is for Question how I got here in the first place. I didn’t start drawing in high school, I
lied. I started in middle school when I needed a hobby while I lock in and learn about
algebra and measurements because a veterinarian needs to know how to measure her
animals if she was to get a
R is for a Real job. It’s why when people outside of this god forsaken school ask me what
I’m
S is for Studying, and I tell them I’m studying Architecture. Because that is a real job, right?
T is for That isn’t to say I’m not proud to be a comics major. Everyone tells me it is
supposed to be one of the most difficult majors in this school and many of the people who
do tell me this also have to awkwardly explain to the class why they’re
U is for Unemployed. The scariest word on the planet, in fact I get
V is for Very upset that people joke about how scary a job application is
W is for When being jobless, homeless, letting down your entire family who looks at this
shitty terrible anatomically incorrect skeleton you drew and are stunned into silence
because Wow how did you do this? I can’t do this? I can’t draw the way you do; the world
needs your mind and you’re going to become so famous and work for Disney so you can
buy us a beautiful house in New York or Florida and take care of us–
X is for Xylophone. Because I remember what they taught me now.
Y is for Yak. Or something. Actually, Y is for why it is spelt with a W? Why is it not just the
one word? Like when ppl text and they shorten out the lttrs to make it e-z to read.
Z is for Zebra. Because I don’t know a single word that starts with Z that means failure.