Young 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.
Just as we emerge from the pandemic, new distressing world events have begun to sandblast our brains on a daily basis. And though takes its toll, we (hopefully) know it’s OK to step away and climb onto our peaceful inner hammocks if we need a moment to breathe. When this week’s featured poet, Abby Carson of Newbury, wants to escape from it all, she revisits her safe-haven memory of “You Are My Sunshine” sung at bedtime.
Sunshine
By Abby Carson, 16, of Newbury
Just a little girl,
lights off,
eyes closed,
unable to settle after her mind was just racing a million miles an hour,
after her feet were jumping from wall to wall,
until she feels the familiar weight create an indent next to her on the bed.
The hands that belong to this weight begin to tuck her in.
The blanket starts to hug her tighter.
She feels warmer and safer.
And the soft voice begins to sing,
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”
The melodies of her childhood.
The words enter her ears like conditioner into silky hair.
“You make me happy, when skies are gray…”
She is able to lie there and listen.
The gentle hand begins to trace soothing circles on her back,
and the light fingers brush over her eyelids.
“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…”
Absolute calm, and then sleep.
But she knows that the voice and the hand and the weight stay there
for a long time,
singing and circling.
“So please don’t take my sunshine away…”
The little girl is me.
And this moment is my saving grace.
It’s the only place I can go
when I don’t want to be here,
when being in my own head gets too hard.
I remember the hands and the voice and the weight.
And the person they belonged to.
My home away from home.
My escape.
