I Am in My Chair

I am in my chair. 

I am in the room. 

The desk in front of me 

is my sepulcher.  

Sentences and sentences, 

words and words, 

syllables, syllables, and syllables,  

lull me to my sepulcher, 

freely in my sepulcher. 

I’m not in my chair. 

I’m not in the room. 

I rise up and see the perfect geometry, 

rise up and see the beauty of the angel’s halo; 

I’m in the center of the free-throw line. 

I shoot and watch 

the ball fly freely along an unlimited curve. 

I shoot and hear 

the sound of the net traveling anywhere it wants. 

The leaves float freely. 

My sweat drop and flow freely, 

and I can walk, can run, can roll, can jump freely 

to anywhere I want. 

I am in my chair. 

I am in the room. 

The devil shakes my sepulcher 

and brings me back from death to life. 

The words from the devil 

freeze and lock me in the room, 

in my chair— 

This is the sound of the bell

from heaven that I have been waiting for. 

I’m free again, 

For another ten minutes. 

Richard Lee is a 9th-grade student at Taipei Fuhsing Private School who has discovered a growing passion for prose and poetry. Whether crafting vivid stories or exploring emotion through verse, Richard enjoys using language to reflect on the world around him and give shape to his imagination.