YWP: ‘Dear Charlotte’

[Y]oung Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.

Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.

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, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.

Abby Simmons, 17, of St. Albans, wrote this piece in response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, when one woman, Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and at least 14 others were injured while protesting a white nationalist rally. Abby writes, “I wanted to lend my support to the victims and families affected by the tragedy … I personified Charlottesville as ‘Charlotte’ to show that this is a human issue. I wanted to lend my support to the people of Charlottesville, not just preach about a tragedy.”

Dear Charlotte

By Abby Simmons

[D]ear Charlotte,
I heard.
We all did, and I hope you’re okay.
I know you aren’t.
You can’t be,
not after all that’s happened.

Dear Charlotte,
I offer my shoulder to cry on
and I’ll cry with you
because this should be over and long past.
But I guess equality is eternally fought for.

Dear Charlotte,
please remember that you’re one of us
and we stand by you.
We stand by you when men with
fire in their eyes, in their hands, and on their tongues
declare that they want their freedom,
but what they really want is free rein.

Dear Charlotte,
we want the freedom to live,
not the freedom to hate.