Reflections: On Writing Awards
how much external validation is enough?
Here’s a strange reflective moment in the middle of the night; my large collection of writing prizes often feels like that crate with your first name on it at your mother’s house containing the scores of plastic trophies you were so proud of in second grade.
To My Trophy Collection
A younger version of yourself was a gymnastics lover
or a bowler or softball champ or ate the most hot dogs
or guessed the number of Skittles in a jar
or an excellent flautist, or debater, or never missed a single day of school
and that self collected years of annual awards that decorated your high school room until they made you feel uncomfortable
as though
at 15 and ready to date
needing nothing more than the perfect song and a mirror
and the right outfit (oh… there, that’s the rub)
to conquer the universe,
your teen self was muffled in the wrinkled skin of an old woman
taking rheumy pride in a sepia beauty shot tucked in the mirror’s frame
or a man with a paunch and early onset diabetes telling his doctor
ebullient stories of a long-ago basketball game that he’d won
until the laughter turned into the usual coughing fit
