Open Mic Scream, Redux

In my lifetime I have seen people come and go

and I want to embrace them all

in Times New Roman font, a nod

to my education, a final farewell in my last hour

while going back to relive just one moment, when

my creative writing professor

told us that to pass her class we needed

to read a single poem out loud,

at a public speaking event in which

I was at that bar downtown and

my lips shook reading my last few lines

at the open mic, screaming internally

without making a single dent

in the oncoming silence

a testament to my spiraling inner monologue

in my last hour, between a dusk and dawn

not willing to leave the earth

without a nod from the audience

I get up, grab a microphone one last time

and speak my truth, though my voice

shakes, eager to get the A