OHMYGOLLYGEEHOTSAUCE!!! I'M PUBLISHED!!!

Hi. My name is Sara. I am a college freshman.  And I am a twice-published author (plus my name was mentioned as a PR chick in a 5th grade state of Nebraska water workbook. Yay!).  The first thing is just a Gold Award Project for the Girl Scouts (don't you judge, I know you love the cookies!!!). I co-authored an instructional booklet on the same 5th grade workbook I PRed for.  Pretty boring.  The second, and far more exciting, accomplishment is a poem I wrote in my junior year of high school.  If you don't want the whole story, scroll to the bottom and read that, but I'm just going to ramble for about a paragraph.
There was this guy.  There always is, right? Anyway, he is a very complex individual, not someone I can describe in just a few words and for both of our sakes, I will not put his name in this post.  We were best acquaintances, or good friends, and I started to like him.  But he is also very stubborn and somewhat pigheaded.  So I didn't like him.  I was a hormonal teenager, give me a break.  I express myself best through the written word and so, like all love-sick teenage girls, I wrote a poem, only I had a secret.  I happened to be better at poetry than most love-sick teenage girls (most credit to my teachers and peers who reviewed, revised, and suggested).  It got to the point where I actually did a reading at a local coffee shop and then again for my class (not as a project either. They'd asked for it. Wow, right? That's what I said.).
Fast-forward to college, I was scrolling through Facebook and the World Poetry Movement was one of the sponsors. I just thought it would be a collection of poetry I could read and look at. Wrong. It was a contest and it was going to close in a couple of days.  So I submit the only poem I ever felt comfortable with and then after I submit it, I go through it and think that I must have been crazy because who could ever like anything this bad?  I forget about it for a month.  I never check my mailbox because I rarely get mail, but I was having a particularly stressful day and I just wanted a break so I check my mailbox and there's a letter that's a couple of weeks old saying that I have been chosen to be entered as a semi-finalist in the International Poetry Contest.  Not only that, but I have also been selected to be published in an anthology titled Stars in Our Hearts: Moments that will be entered in the Library of Congress.  Long story short, I was hyperventilating and crying and extremely shaky.
This book has been long in production but, months later, it is real and in my hands.  Contest results don't come out until February, but it honestly doesn't matter.  This has been a honor and a humbling experience.  I am so thankful for every opportunity that has been offered to me and I think this is an inspiration to everyone that something you don't think much of, or something you don't really think about at all, might lead to something huge and wonderful.
Ok. I'm done rambling.  Here's what you came here for.

Chocolate

Chocolate
One word to please millions
One word as desirable as life
One word to narrow the universe.
There’s milk chocolate
White,
Dark,
Mint,
Cherry-filled, and many other flavors beside.
Melty, sweet, and warm memories flood to my tongue,
Begging to be spoken.

I prefer dark chocolate.
The bittersweet flavor always startles me.
It tastes like silk and allows me to forget,
And relax…
It’s also a reminder.
Of brilliant smiles,
Of heated debates.
Of peace
Of excitement
You were bittersweet,
Spontaneous,
Startling.
You kept me intrigued,
And I could let you relax into a bliss of satin days.
But too much of a good thing can go bad.
The chocolate chokes me
And bittersweet becomes sour.

So I let it go.
I try milk,
White,
Mint,
And cherry-filled chocolates instead
But I always return to dark chocolate,
Just like you will always return to me
Because no matter how stubborn I am,
Because no matter how frustrating you are,
Because no matter how bad things get,
I will always be here to remind you
Just how good bittersweet is.