YWP: 'And then she grew up'

[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.

Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.

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.

Photo by Ava Rohrbaugh, 15, of Charlotte/YWP Media Library

In bringing a new human being into the world, every parent accepts the responsibility of not only feeding, clothing, and sheltering their child, but also imparting every last tidbit of wisdom they’ve collected for leading a happy, purposeful life. Moretown poet Aurora Sharp, featured this week, paints a small, tender moment between mother and daughter, instructor and pupil.

And then she grew up

By Aurora Sharp, 16, of Moretown

Mama, why do I feel so alone?
Sometimes, you are too big for the world. You are full, too full, full to the eyes.
Then why do I feel so empty?
Sometimes, you are too big for yourself, too.
I don’t know what to do.
Pick up your tears and your knees and make a mosaic out of your pieces.
Try again.
Again?
Again and again and again.

Keep one hand in a fist, but leave the other open
to the birds,
to the sky,
to someone you haven’t met.
Give and give and give,
but don’t be afraid to take.
You are your first, your only, priority.
You are yours.

And always carry a needle and thread,
so that when you break hearts, you can stitch them up as best you can.

I don’t want to break hearts, Mama.
I know.
Believe me, my darling, I know.

But don’t give up.
Sing with the car windows down and
cut your hair too short and
wear the wrong shade of lipstick and
dance in your unfashionable shoes and
say, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
You are stardust.
You are a contradiction.
You are the rain and the rainbow,
deadly and gentle,
fire and ice.
You are the bird in your hand,
unsure.

And change. Every beautiful moment, change.

How do I love, Mama?
Too much, too soon, too fiercely.
With hope and tears and
everything you have.

How do I live, Mama? Mama, how do I live?

I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know.

Oh, but my darling,
there are so many ways.