Her

             The sunny-cream surface of her face radiated a soft glow. He wondered how she seemingly didn't care about her own appearance yet appeared so beautiful. For a moment his eyes were transfixed on her head. 
             He tried to keep his hands from the pulpit for they were shaking once again. Was he nervous? He could not tell. 
             He was in a wooden room with 30 or 40 others. Their eyes were transfixed unto him, as his was on her.
             The protuberant noises of animalistic adjustment—sniffing noses, shuffling chairs, the "excuse me's"—weren't stifling. They were just there. For a short moment he felt like a poet.
             As he stood, the pairs of eyes began to attach themselves to his psyche. What did her name mean again? "Promised by God," he remembered. 
             When it was all over, it became a blur in his memory. Chaia, Allison, Michelle, and she stood on the tiled flooring in the kitchen of the house. He knew not when or how to initiate conversation with her. She had agreed to read one of his poems. 
             He had read Dunbar in front of his poetry class. The audience had said little. But what could they say to a boy who had read two of Paul Laurence Dunbar's hymns in a soft but commanding voice? And if the hymns were Christian in nature, did that matter? Could a Christian hymn be considered great poetry, even as of the 21st century? He wanted to believe in his heart it was possible. But who would write such poems, and who would read them? To give millions hope in their struggle for greater faith. To even reach the disheartened who had grown sick of Christianity. How would he tailor his message to be acceptable to atheists? What options were open to him other than to act in a manner through which others could believe in him? 
             These questions were unavoidable because he aimed to be America's greatest poet. Not that the title existed outside of his own thinking, but, somehow he believed someday his poetry would be read by millions, not thousands, and perhaps billions of people. But it was an unrealistic goal, he told himself. 
             If he did not believe in himself, who would? Sure, he had his close friends. But even they—would they believe in his dream?
             There was that hope. That hope that tomorrow would be a better day. That hope that was the last vestige of his humanity. The consequential and nebulous hope for others, that they would learn to see the value of humility, he had found, was worth dying for. Somehow, on a plane separate from the earthly, ethereal, and ephemeral one, there was a elysium where smiles and laughter were possible. He told himself to have hope and as the day was to close, he did.