About the Young Writers Project
YWP, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, Vermont, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power and to gain confidence and skills for the workplace and life. YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org, which has only one rule: Be respectful. For more information, please contact YWP executive director Geoffrey Gevalt at ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org.
Emily Weatherill is a junior at The Sharon Academy. She wrote this poem at the Young Writers Project’s Celebration of Writing last fall with Vermont slam poet champion Geof Hewitt.
This is a Dream
By Emily Weatherill
[T]his is a dream;
I’ll do what I please.
If I want,
I can ride monkeys made of
ice cream,
and they won’t melt,
because this is a dream,
and I’ll do what I please.
I can climb the tallest tree,
made of electricity,
and I won’t die
or get shocked,
because this is a dream.
I can kill the milkman,
or kiss the bus driver
(a woman, two feet tall),
or eat the bus or
all the paper in the world,
because this is a dream,
and I’ll do what I please.
I can climb over all the mountains,
stacked into one,
in only one minute,
and I can
shovel jelly beans
out of a giant’s ear,
and suck on each one
until they turn into milk,
because this is a dream,
and I’ll do what I please.
I can play hop-scotch with
the school bullies,
and if they’re mean,
I can bite their arms off.
I can build a house,
and tear it down again
with a crane made of water,
because this is a dream,
and I’ll do what I please.
I can hold you,
Mother,
even though you’re gone.
I can hold you for forever,
because this is a dream,
and I will do what I please.
