A teacher

You were my teacher
you hurt me once with
your words, your
misreading of my intentions-
"I think it's so pretentious. Why
don't you give them titles?"

The last I would have wanted
was to be proud, to think
too highly of myself.
To pretend; to be mysterious.
No titles, 'cos I didn't know how
to name them. There was no
Arthur Yap going on
in my mind (In fact, I
hadn't any idea who he was then.
My apologies, sir.)

So here I am, still
writing my broken verses,
but trust me, I'm writing them
on my sleeves.

Do I write them fiercely? I'd
like to give you the image
of the words scrawled across
parchment furiously as my quill flies,
but not quite. (I do try.)
Though I don't toil over them as
Sassoon recommended Owen,
here they are. Records
of what a different teacher
shows me.