WE WRITE HERE
  • AWARDED
  • Writing
  • FAQ
  • Supporters
  • Updates
  • Educators
  • Editors
  • Contact
  • Zine

We Write Here

Write to be creative, fearless, and free.
Latest Award: "Multiple Reflections"
June 2025
Started in Oakland, CA
Awarding Creative Students
​6th-12th Grades

Send in your Writing
Monthly email: awards - subscribe

Chalk-Dusted dreams

3/18/2023

 
Picture
Anshi P. 9th - Clarksburg, MD
I always thought stick figures were like skeletons,
facedown, legs splayed, pink lines
oftentimes rendered in a toddler’s world

Scooter rides and unicorn fantasies,
string cheese and tantrums,
zoo trips and water bottles
with fading tv show character prints

These artists will grow into the lost ones who
graffiti the hollow insides of metro stations,
cursing over runny spray paint

I bend down and blow on the already-
smeared chalk drawing as if it were a harvested cupful
of dandelion seeds tethered to the Earth,
through firm roots tunneling into sparse soil

A lopsided oval teetering on its shriveled pink stick figure,
the twig with forks for branches is surrounded by smears of red [*this word is a part of the last line*]
Arms flailing, the figure is dead

The pavement is discolored by trees without leaves,
as if the heart-shaped outlines were too complicated
for the grubby-handed artist,
mimicking their fickle world

The brittle creatures leave ugly residual prints on
my white shoes and I walk,
over the art engraved on cement
A children's tattoo that will wash away in the rain

Comments are closed.

    Authors

    Students 6th-12th Grades
    We Write Here!

    month

    June 2025
    April 2025
    November 2024
    August 2024
    April 2024
    December 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018

donate: Writing awards


​Terms & Conditions 
 Sponsors
​


Copyright © 2018
  • AWARDED
  • Writing
  • FAQ
  • Supporters
  • Updates
  • Educators
  • Editors
  • Contact
  • Zine