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 Smyth, a high school freshman who lives in Craftsbury, writes about spotting a handmade sign on the front window of a house as she passes by in a car – and how someone’s message of love for “Sally” makes her smile.
I Love You Sally
By Emily Smyth
[W]e were driving
as always.
Going through town after town,
flashing trees,
paved road smooth beneath the car’s tires,
houses and sidewalks blurred by our pace.
Everything was normal, average, ordinary.
As we rounded another corner
I saw the house
we always see on our way home.
But it was different this time.
I tilted my head, squinted my eyes,
wondering if I was imagining it.
As we came closer and closer
I saw it more clearly.
Cut-out letters
from creamy white printer paper
taped to the bay window facing the road.
Clean, crisp lines against the clear glass
made it easy to see from my view.
A smile spread slowly across my lips as I read the words,
I Love You Sally.
I didn’t know Sally.
I didn’t know who boldly proclaimed their love to her on this window.
Nevertheless, it made me smile.
We still drive by that house on our way home.
The paper has slowly wilted and peeled back; some letters have even fallen out of view.
I’ve concluded that these letters can’t possibly contain the love felt for Sally.
They were so heavy with love
they began to fall. They began to wilt.
Or, Sally saw this proclamation on her window and ran.
She was too scared to face her own feelings.
And she left someone with a heavy heart,
who left the letters on the window as a sign
that, no matter what,
he’d be waiting for her
when she came back.
So many things could’ve happened.
It’s impossible to tell what that sign once said long ago when we first drove by it.
But I know.
It’s like a sweet secret I hold on my tongue.
And I’m here to tell you, Sally,
someone out there loves you so.
Check out the August issue of The Voice, the Young Writers Project monthly digital magazine. Click here.
