This
week’s poem by Addy Campbell, a sophomore at Mount Abraham Union High School, came about while eating a stick of
celery, which she actually doesn’t enjoy. In questioning why she was eating it,
a memory of a time since passed was triggered, and she found inspiration to
write in the most unlikely of situations.
For more great student writing go to youngwritersproject.org
I can’t stand celery
but yet here I am, eating it anyway
because its obnoxiously stringy and tastes like
waiting.
In the same way that no one really likes the
taste of
alcohol
(just the end result)
I swallow the fizzing, bitter remains
of a memory.
In gulps too big for such a little girl
I process
what I’ve left behind
and from here it all looks so
bright.
I woke up this morning with the sun in my eyes
its been a while
since I’ve seen her face
and I’m not sure I’m really ready for this
winter to be over with
because its much easier to function on autopilot
when the skies overhead are as blank as your
mind.
Creativity? Ha! Its shriveled up, locked under a
thinning blanket of
wet, melting snow.
I would let it out but
I’m not quite the same person now
as I was then
when things that bloomed bloomed slowly
brightly
rightly.
I guess you may say I’m stuck here
bitter celery strands between my teeth, tongue full
of waiting
because I’m afraid that when winter truly goes
My inner core will stir, and restless, uncork
itself
and there will be nothing there within
to
open
up
and
bloom.