Pandora's Collective Poetry Contest (2017)
​1st Place Winner - Teen Category

A Thursday Letter to God

My first grade teacher told me
when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
I have nothing against that. I really don’t.
It’s a children’s drink. What more can I say?
I’ve heard stories that it really brings back memories of summer.
There’s just one fault in that statement my teacher gave me.

I don’t like the taste of lemonade.

It isn’t that I don’t like that metaphor,
in fact, the idea of turning something sour into something sweet
is innovative, even intricate.
It’s just my tastebuds, my stomach, my digestive system,
they don’t like it, so neither do I.
It is rather unpleasant. Like poison.

Oh, don’t think I’m a pessimist.
I’m really not. It’s just the taste doesn’t
resonate with my brain, my body.
You know, I tried to convince myself I liked it
in third grade, when everybody drank it.
I wanted so badly to fit in, and belong somewhere.
So I drank it like it was whisky,
glass after glass, disgust upon disgust.
It wasn’t an addiction, I knew what I was doing.
I was drinking the undrinkable. Slowly committing suicide.
Not being who I really am.

I like drinking stories better.

Absorbing moisture from ink, from thoughts, from free spirits.
I love to listen and have the words drip down my ear canals like liquid,
touching my Eustachian tubes, sounding the drums.
I can tell what they taste like.

My grade six teacher told me, I had a passion for poetry.
Which is true except for one small thing.
She didn’t know why.

I have a passion for speaking, even when I can’t say everything.

So let me just say, there is a saying, blood is thicker than water.
It is true, family is most indestructible.
It is true scientifically, blood is thicker than water.
But, let me ask this, after you’ve run out of blood, do you drink water?
Its caught me many times there.

I guess, I like water better than lemonade.
It tastes like air.

Lemons make lemonade. People live stories.
You can choose either.

​In my case, I’ll be perfectly pleased,
when they figure out what strawberries make.
I will find heaven when it happens.

-  Samantha Chen