Wed. Nov 13th, 2024
A child in an orange hoodie throws a glowing object in a field at night, with a clear starry sky above.
A child in an orange hoodie throws a glowing object in a field at night, with a clear starry sky above.
“Don’t Go!” by Grace Weinstein, YWP Media Library

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.


“Youth is wasted on the young,” old-timers say with a chuckle, amused by naïve younger generations’ proclivity to let the wonders of life pass them by without the confidence or gumption yet to act. But the truth is, we long for the insulated (and irretrievable) innocence of our formative years even as we only just begin to emerge from them. This week’s featured poet, Isla Segal of Woodstock, laments the lost purity of early childhood — a time when our heads were markedly less full of the swirling concerns of the day.

When I’d go

Isla Segal, 13, Woodstock

They all say they’d visit dinosaurs, 

go back and dig for gold, 

meet their great-great-great-grandparents, 

be around when electricity was discovered. 

When the question is asked 

in get-to-know-you circles, 

I’ll say that’s what I want, too, 

and it will mostly be true. 

Except I’ll always think 

of when I was 5, 

or 9, 

or 11, 

or even last summer when I had less

on my mind,

in my head,

less to think about.

What if I went to then

and watched myself be little,

innocent,

and soaked up the rich gold of youth?

Read the story on VTDigger here: Young Writers Project: ‘When I’d go’.

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