This piece was recorded live at the Young Writers Project headquarters in front of an audience of a dozen other writers and their fans.
Sustenance
By Olivia Pintair
Grade Eight, Lake Champlain Waldorf School
I live in the wake of every person’s death.
I trail behind them
lapping up their sorrow like a mutt by a stream
whose ripples are leaping.
I drink in the hatred spat out by the sinner
by the shadow spinners
by the music makers muse
by the lit end of a fuse
and I bleed them
like they're mine.
I like to hold the mist that rises from the depths of people.
I can feel them in me
moving within me
and then outward like a raven-starbound.
Starbound but tethered like rooftop shingles
and sound that lingers
in the light of the sun
in the flame of the moon
in the hands of something
whose hands hold our nothing
because nothing is everything
when its what keeps you alive.
