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.
Whether it’s sloppy kisses with your dog, separating the components of your meal by color, or a
preference to jog in the blistering cold, we all have our cutesy, neurotic, and perfectly unique quirks. But
this week’s featured poet, Emily Kneeland of Cambridge, considers them not only integral to our
personality but something to celebrate. After all, she boldly points out, “There’s madness inside all of us.” Who would we be without it?
There is madness inside us all
Emily Kneeland, 15, Cambridge
You may try as you will
to be someone you’re not,
and eventually you will fail
because you’ve left your own soul to rot.
You can let yourself out.
I promise, it’s okay.
You won’t be left behind
just because you act a different way.
In this world
we are not all the same;
we all have something in us
that will never be tamed.
So come in with the rain,
take charge of the fall.
You will always appear sane,
but there’s madness inside us all.
