About To Be Authors

In the basement, there’s a hidden room
next to the ancient boiler.
Always warm, this is where their club meets—
the yet to be famous authors.
They have no cheerleaders or fight songs,
no spirit weeks or scoreboards.
It is a room for the dreamy-eyed.
Adventures rush through their heads,
their heads haloed with messy, flyaway hair.
It is a room crowded with spaceships and swords,
daring rescues, mythical creatures. Epic romance.
It is a room where the best story is this:
One reads aloud, then another.
When they receive, as advertised, only
Applause, bravery is poured into the air.
The quiet others
open their secret notebooks
and begin to speak