[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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“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt,” Sylvia Plath wrote, and Charlotte poet Rose Lord would certainly attest to that. Sometimes though, if we push ourselves, we can turn self-doubt on its own head and use it as the inspiration behind the creativity we are struggling to find. In revealing the sly tricks of the demons whispering, You can’t, this week’s featured writer manages to outsmart them.
A ghost in the closet
By Rose Lord, 15, of Charlotte
It’s been a year in quarantine,
a dry monotony.
That is, until I started hearing
things I couldn’t see.
A ghost lives in my closet
and whispers in the dark,
of every mundane memory
where failure’s left its mark.
Another seethes and scuttles,
drifting through my head,
discarding inspirations
until there’s nothing left.
I thought of them as spirits,
‘cause what else could they be?
That is, until I listened…
now I fear they might be me.
For a ghost lives in my closet,
and another in my head,
but the voice is mine, and mine alone
and that is what I dread
