Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.
Growing Up
Astrid Longstreth, 15, West Bolton
She used to listen to the snow and think about how beautiful the world was, how magical.
How perfect, pristine, like a flower curled in a tiny fist.
She would gaze with wonder at the sunsets and cry about the things that didn’t matter.
But eventually she would realize that in plucking the beautiful little flower that she had held in her once-tiny fist, she had killed it.
She realized the world wasn’t always perfect, wasn’t always kind to girls lost in ignorant bliss.
She saw that there were real problems worth crying about, and she would hold in her tears —
But some days she would still let them go when the problems and the things that didn’t really matter still overwhelmed her.
Because she never let go of the little girl inside her, and she would feel her breaking free as she listened to the snow falling down in the silent woods. She would briefly wonder if the world really did have some magic in it, before chastising herself for holding on to hope. She wouldn’t always notice the flowers still blooming in the spring and realize that hope does exist. But someday, she would. Someday.
