YWP: ‘To The Girl I Know as Strong’

[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.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend,” Henry David Thoreau said, and Anna Phelps knows this well. Young Writers Project’s featured poet this week, of Wolcott, writes a tender piece in recognition of the value of female friendship and support. To an unnamed young woman, she vows to be there when the skies are clear – and be the shoulder to lean on, too, through the tougher times when “a heart bleeds rougher.”

To The Girl I Know as Strong

By Anna Phelps

[T]o the girl I know as strong:
I’m here for you, my dear.
Whether it be through light and happiness
or treachery and fear.

As long as the sun rises in the morning
and sets in the dusky night,
as long as the mountains stand tall
and the ponds shimmer light.

Whether it’s when life gets tough
or a heart bleeds rougher,
or some tears run dry
or there isn’t any suffer.

Whether it be huge
or maybe just small,
may our ideas grow big
or we have none at all.

Darling, maybe he won’t understand,
or maybe he can,
but it won’t really matter
because together we stand.

To the girl I know as strong:
I’m here for you my dear,
for whatever you may need from me.
I will always be right here.