Margins
margin (noun)
the blank space around the edges of a page; a boundary or limit
I fell in love with dictionaries before I learned to love stories.
My bedroom shelves were crowded with heavy books,
their spines cracked open from years of searching
for words I had not yet learned to say.
At spelling bees, I carried my favorite dictionary;
wrapped in a worn brown leather sleeve,
with deep index notches where my thumb had traced the same letters thousands of times,
the lifeline my aunt gave me before my first competition,
telling me that every word had a story waiting to be found.
I studied every page until the letters blurred,
until the definitions became my best friends.
I knew where each word lived,
how each syllable sounded,
how a single misplaced letter could change everything.
But spelling bees were not about loving words.
They were about proving I deserved to know them.
Under bright lights and silent crowds,
I stood behind a microphone,
waiting for a word that could decide my worth.
The rules were written clearly:
there was a correct way to speak,
a correct way to spell,
and a correct way to succeed.
I began
rewriting myself
within the boundaries
I could not cross:
the score
I needed, the expectations
I carried, the harsh line between
being talented and being
the best.
Yet, my favorite word
was always
margin.
I loved the way it quietly stood
beside everything else
While the center of the page
held the story, the edges held
my possibilities.
In the margins, I wrote
questions,
drew
doodles,
and created my own
definitions that no dictionary
had ever recorded.
I wondered how something could mean both
the space where
nothing
belonged and the place where
anything
could begin.
Maybe I had spent
years chasing
the center,
trying to fit perfectly
inside the lines, when all along
I was meant to explore
the space
beyond them.
margin (noun)
the blank space around the edges of a page; a place where there are endless possibilities