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.
Some people hold the opinion that our faults, quirks and mishaps make us who we are. But what does that look like in practice — that extension of compassion for those eccentricities that color our personality and image? This week’s featured poet, Isla Segal of Woodstock, finds enthusiastic praise for and meaning in the not-so-perfect chipped nail polish of another student.
The girl with nail polish like stars
Isla Segal, 13, Woodstock
The girls drum their fingernails
lightly,
not like real drumming —
more like timid rain.
Their nails extend
two nail-lengths past
the end of their nail,
shiny white,
shiny pink,
shiny red if they’re feeling
different.
They tap like timid rain
on their desks,
on their chins,
on their travel mugs.
Timid
rain:
pat,
pat,
tap.
But the ones I love
are the ones who come into school,
holding school breakfast.
Their nail polish is like stars on their nails.
It’s five days since the perfect polish turned
to broken pieces.
Now they’ve been stars
since I can remember,
and they’re little magenta dots
all over her nails,
and she hasn’t taken them off yet,
and I love her for her stars.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Young Writers Project: ‘The girl with nail polish like stars’.