where's your malloy tonight ?

[Proof]

Written for my grade 12 English class, in 2025. The assignment was to write a poem about a piece of art.

Electric like the basement of a teenager
Overflowing with bodies buzzing
And sparking, energy bouncing,
Hearts thumping to the music
And hiding from a world unkind

Animated like my hand on a page,
My guts spilled out in lines and colourful
Squiggles, my fingers twitching,
Soul itching to flee through my throat
From my chest to a home to live beyond me

Before he lived on pins on backpacks
And t-shirts on backs
Before his name was a beloved melody
And bright symbol—
Haring drew on walls
Like our ancestors painted in caves

With shocks of colour he cried out
In the face of the society that spurned him
And those he held dear:

“We danced, we loved, we lived
We’re alive, we’re alive, we’re alive”

Alive in ’87 and gone by ’90
The world misses Haring while Haring misses
A world that still spins
A society that still spurns

To stand loud and bold against
A world that stands
Loud and bold against me
And those I hold dear
I use my hands and cry out
Like Haring with his dancing figures

Every scribbled word sings the same song

I dance, I love, I live,
I’m alive
I’m alive

I’m alive.