[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.
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In the good times, it’s hard to remember the bad – but that goes both ways. It takes a certain level of foresight to acknowledge the vague outline of a twist in the road up ahead while still fully soaking in the sunlight of the present moment. Hinesburg poet Izzy O’Donnell, featured this week, prepares a message of love for their future self to read back when the going gets tough.
Letter to myself
By Izzy O’Donnell, 14, Hinesburg
This is a letter to myself:
When the dark and the cold and the lonely
threaten to overtake your mind,
when the hurt and the pain and the longing
manage to creep their way inside,
I don’t want you to give in.
I don’t want you to bite your tongue and close your eyes.
Don’t let those feelings inside –
‘cause I love you.
I care,
even if I’m in the past
and you’re not yet here.
I love you,
and I see,
in you, all the best parts of me.
This is a letter to myself:
No matter where you are,
no matter where you’ve been,
no matter what you’ve done,
I still love you more than them.
No matter what you’ve seen,
no matter what you’ve heard,
I’ll still listen to your every single word.
‘Cause I love you,
and I care,
even if I’m in the past
and you’re not yet here.
This is a letter to myself.
