This piece was one from the selection of outstanding poetry performed at the Burlington Book Festival’s Millennial Writers on Stage reading. She says her inspiration for it comes from “realizing that logic is a feeling.”
Shimmering Tails Up
by Avery McLean
Lake Champlain Waldorf School
Grade Eight, St. George
She knew it was lucky from the second the sun rose.
She could tell, you know, because it was so different, (and all the pennies she threw in the air landed shimmering, tails up.)
It was lucky the way he sat with her, and the way she felt
Right in her skin, like it fit, for the first time.
It was lucky the way the door creaked when it opened,
Like it was trying to tell its own story.
It was lucky the way she shrieked with joy, and no one
Noticed because they were, after all, the ones who
Let her do it.
It was little things, too.
The way the grass blew in the direction the sun sets when the
Wind blew it.
The way music seemed scrawled around her, and
Words scrambled together to make sentences, and
Fantasies she'd only dreamed of came true.
But most of all, it was lucky because she realized that
She could do anything, that the
World was at her fingertips, she didn't even have to dial 9.
And that maybe even if her life was no more than
Merely the smallest shadow on the street,
At least she could live it brilliantly.
