This is the only piece of work I have ever read that I will never forget. I based my hopes, my dreams, and my beliefs around it. The first time I read it, I was in fifth grade. I was angry. I was angry, and I could not tell you or anyone else why, for I did not know. Happiness alluded me; I alluded it. I was angry, and I wanted everyone else to feel my rage with me. There was something wrong with life. It was an underdeveloped idea, something barely forming but not yet identified.
My teacher read the poem out loud to the class, and my facial expressions softened, almost sore from the scowl I always adorned. It resonated deep within me, an echo that I can still hear.
I immediately found myself drawn to the moth, and I ignorantly didn’t consider the cockroach as anything more than pitiful. When we took a poll to see who identified with the cockroach or moth, I was shocked. Almost twenty children chose to be the cockroach, while less than ten chose the moth. I was never so baffled in my entire life, nor do I think I ever will be again.
When I read this poem, it was almost as if my entire life changed. It didn’t happen in a minute or even the day after, but after a week of mulling it over until it was naked without mystery, I gained my first real idea. I gained something that was my own, something that people didn’t agree with me on. Most importantly, I didn’t believe it by someone else’s command. I finally had a voice.
After reading this poem, I did not change immediately. I did not even change for three years afterwards, but rather cried myself to sleep wishing to be a moth. Then, the next morning, I would put on my cockroach costume, for it was easier.
In ninth grade, I remembered it again. It was a random echo from deep, and I read it again. In that moment, I flipped as if a coin, deciding to finally shape my life around it. I changed everything I did, everything I loved, and everything I believed. People change, and this poem changed me.
I love how you talk on how the poem effected you. I love how you acknowledge that it wasn’t an immediate change that followed.
The fact that you at the end made it known that you at first tried to change your point of view shows what really would happen and that seems really motivating in a way.
I absolutely love the way you worded everything. I also love how it completely changed your perspective of life and the fact that it didn’t change immediately.
Another thing is how you revisited the poem.
I really liked how the poem sort of stagnated in your mind for years before you rediscovered it and were affected by it. And the way you used the poem as a model for how you described yourself, calling yourself a cockroach and wishing to be a moth, was really poignant especially after reading the poem.