“The Hysterical Wordsmith”

by
Bridgette Niña B. Orolfo

Languid strokes of my pen,

Is all it takes to perpetuate them.
Taking back the ticks of the clock,
Echoing the whispers of my tongue-tied heart.
Retrospective, wandering eye
And a plethora of words I want, but can't say.
Through a fortnight of fiendish scheming and wordplay,
Under my blasé gaze, I wrote them with distorted windings.
Romanticism is my godmother,
Embracing my emotional, indelible writings.
Note:

We were asked to write an acrostic poem about literature. However, my relationship with
literature goes way back and is just a very broad topic for me to be able to describe in a mere 10
lines(T_T). There weren’t any specific instructions, so I took the liberty of just using the
perspective of a writer with regard to the literature they write:-D. This activity is very close to my
heart, for I’ve been somewhat of a self-proclaimed poet for over a year now(¬‿¬). I started writing
little poems last year, and my appreciation for them just grew as time passed.

For this certain piece, I gravitated towards the idea of how literature can immortalize and
preserve the emotions and fleeting moments in the life of the author. In a way, it is a lot like a
photograph, but instead of a photo paper and tricks of light, it’s made up of pen, paper, and the
author’s creativity and passion. Furthermore, this piece also tackles how literature can be an
outlet for the author to express and say the things she wants to convey when mere words can’t
quite capture how she truly feels. In this way, I also wanted to show how intimate the connection
between the author and her works is. Somehow, a writer’s works(literature) are an extension of
their persona.

I’m very nervous about passing this piece because this is one of the very few times that a teacher
asks us to compose a poem. I enjoyed the process of writing very much, though(❁´◡`❁).

Thank you so much for reading po!<3

(I hope the piece weren’t that terrible ( ⊙_⊙;) )