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.
If you’ve ever heard someone make a flippant joke about not wanting their headstone to read that “she kept a clean house,” it may have gotten you thinking. You probably never have, on visits to a loved one’s monument, found references to a person’s career, hobbies or habits. Instead, it’s the human qualities within us that are cherished and remembered. This week’s featured poet, Ev Tower-Pierce of East Burke, celebrates the everyday moments of kindness, rather than the grand gestures, that bring us all together.
Kindness, accidentally
Ev Tower-Pierce, 17, East Burke
I did not know kindness isn’t always loud,
not the grand gestures, not the
throw-the-coat-over-a-puddle –
because sometimes
it is simply someone sitting on the ground
just because you did, even though
there’s a perfectly good chair
and they’re wearing white pants.
Sometimes,
it’s the way they swing your hand while walking, no rhythm,
just something they can’t help, or it’s the way
someone grabs your arm mid-laugh,
like the joke was too big for one body,
like joy needed somewhere else to go.
Someone spinning while they’re waiting for the microwave,
skipping stairs just to feel a second of flight,
swaying in the kitchen with you,
arms around your ribs, like there’s music
only you can hear.
It’s
the breath someone takes at an open window,
like the sky has said their name.
The way they pull their chair closer to yours,
not because they can’t hear you,
but because they want to.
Someone waiting for your laugh before they keep talking,
letting you hum, letting you be,
someone asking if you’re okay
when you’re crying on the phone
in the middle of the street,
reminding you you’re not invisible.
It’s no big deal, just a hundred tiny things
that say, I see you, I see you, I see you,
without making it a thing.
And maybe you don’t notice at first,
maybe you’re still unlearning how to flinch –
but something in you
starts to relax.
And suddenly,
you’re laughing with your whole body,
spinning in hallways,
breathing deeper at windows,
pulling your chair closer too.
Maybe that’s the point.
Maybe kindness isn’t the starring role –
just the reason
the story gets to keep going.
