Young Writers Project is a creative, online community of teen writers and visual artists that started in Burlington in 2006. Each week, VTDigger publishes the writing and art of young Vermonters who post their work on youngwritersproject.org, a free, interactive website for youth, ages 13-19. To find out more, please go to youngwritersproject.org or contact Executive Director Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org; (802) 324-9538.
The bedroom is the first sacred space we ever come to know as children — the one place in the world we can seek privacy and refuge, begin exploring our own style of decor, and learn responsibility through tidying up. This week’s featured poet, Anna O’Reilly of South Burlington, describes a chaotic jungle of a bedroom that, for her, serves as a perfect, homey nest of contentment.
Four walls
By Anna O’Reilly, 16, of South Burlington
Four walls
that trap me inside a place I’m content.
My own sanctuary is a jungle,
though the vines you can’t swing on.
The floor is just as messy, but without the mud.
The ground is littered with clothes and trash from last month.
The sky has been replaced by thin, fabric art.
The walls have been trampled with tacks
hanging up my interests,
for the nooks in this jungle are all full.
The sky does not have a sun
but a daughter who it watches over.
I can hear the noise of a bird,
though that is what music has become:
a song of serenity,
its own world inside a vast jungle.
The music stands in front of me as a bodyguard,
protecting me from the toxic fumes that could cloud my ears.
This jungle’s walls are built from wood,
but not placed as trees.
The trees had to crumple to build this jungle,
though none could grow here,
for all natural light has been blocked by the thin fabric
and replaced with neon signs
and LED bulbs that always stay on the same color.
The plants are all fake, except for the cactus,
and even that is dying.
I haven’t watered it since February
because I watched the last one suffer as it drowned —
no energy to scream,
just to rot.
This jungle is my home inside a house.
