Jessica Beliveau is an eighth grade student at Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School in Essex Junction. Jessica says she wrote The Victim’s Memorial in response to events in the news. "In light of recent events like Ferguson, I was having a lot of thoughts about our society and who is victimized. In this piece, I thought about the ‘suffocating’ qualities of multiple aspects of our culture," she says.
The Victim's Memorial
By Jessica Beliveau
Grade 8, Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School
We kindle our lofty ambitions
and douse every stray hope and dream,
drinking gallons of coffee
so that we might stay awake.
When we finally fall asleep
wishes spark with potential,
ambitions abandoned,
set out with the trash.
We will catch a wink of sleep
and when we wake up
we find a way to light those ambitions again.
Yet the smoke,
the smoke,
the smoke
is stifling.
It’s getting harder to breathe.
Drowning,
suffocating,
dying.
Those hopes and dreams we once entertained,
snuffed like candles at the victim’s memorial,
their smoke is sweeter.
Who’d rather die awake than asleep?
I only wanted the sweet death,
not this choking torture for years
and years
and years, years, years.
We don’t need our angels
when our demons are on our shoulders.
The angels roam free in our dreamscapes
but this world is the devil’s realm.
No room for angels
in this reality.
