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This week, we present responses to the following challenges: Beautiful. Begin or end a poem or story with the phrase, “She was beautiful, but in a different sort of way.” And general writing.
Prompt: Beautiful
By Emilia Perry
Age 15, Thetford
She is beautiful,
but in a different sort of way.
Her hair: frozen white wisps,
stark against a clear blue sky.
Her eyelashes: flashes of blurred color,
petals falling with each careful blink.
Her eyes: a stormy, unfathomable gray —
as easy to get lost in as the choppy sea itself.
Her limbs: fragile twigs,
bending and swaying in the slightest wind.
Hidden inside: a steely will,
strengthened by a rough skin of bark —
yet with a force so gentle
it mirrors a mother’s loving touch.
Her freckles: innumerable dots of light —
a multitude of stars
sprayed over her cheeks and nose.
Her brain: the sun,
holding thoughts bright, clear, and glowing.
Her heart: an incandescent orb,
filled with love as uncharted, mysterious, and desired
as the dark side of the moon.
For she is the Earth —
the air, the wind, the sea,
the bounty of all that is living.
And I, among the billions
who dwell upon her surface,
can only watch in wonder.
By Lucy Glueck
Age 16, Hanover
“She’s beautiful, if you think about it,” said Anna, “but in a different sort of way.”
I wasn’t convinced. “She’s a lizard.”
My friend Anna was showing me her new pet: a long, low bearded dragon that crouched motionless, glistening under an orange-tinted heat lamp. “How do you even know she’s a she?”
“Does it matter?” Anna reached into the tank with both hands and lifted the lizard out in front of her. She cradled it in her arms like a baby, and it blinked lazily and flicked its grayish tongue at her. “Do you want to hold her?”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you scared?”
I was, but not of the lizard. I was scared that I would hold it too loosely, and drop it — or too tightly, and crush it. Either way I would have killed Anna’s pet. I would have felt the same way about a hamster, or a baby.
“She’s not slimy, you know.”
“Of course not.”
I could see that from where I stood; she was dry and cool. The only thing slimy about her was the way she moved: smoothly, slowly, sometimes not at all. If it weren’t for her blinking, I’d have no way of knowing she was even alive.
“I’m thinking of naming her Elizabeth,” said Anna. “Liz for short.”
“A lizard doesn’t need a nickname.”
I imagined calling this creature Elizabeth. It felt strange giving her a name at all. She was so torpid, so cold, so committed to conserving energy, that she seemed almost to be made of plastic – like the world’s tiniest, scaliest mannequin.
“What do you feed her?” I asked. “Mice?”
“No,” said Anna, “she’s a vegetarian. Well, mostly. Do you want to see what she eats?”
I didn’t, but I said yes anyway. I watched as Anna carefully assembled a tiny salad: lettuce greens, carrot shavings, and a single quartered grape. On top of this she put a crumbly red pellet that smelled like dog food.
“Her vitamins,” Anna said. The lizard ignored her meal for a long time.
“Why isn’t she eating? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” said Anna. “She’ll eat when she’s ready. She likes to take her time.”
Anna lowered her pet back into her tank. She looked happiest there, viewed through the glass. As she lay under the heat lamp, I could almost convince myself I saw joy on her face – proof that she was enjoying her basking. But when I looked again, she was just a lizard, lying there simple and slow, and unable to think or smile or frown or cry.
I watched as Anna drew a single finger down the ridge of the lizard’s back. She stroked her, happy just to touch her. And as I watched the gentle, tender way her hand traced the lizard’s spine, I realized something: Anna was beautiful, in a different sort of way.
Prompt: General
By Sarah Hall
Age 13, Hanover
She was ahead of our time.
She dreamed of worlds circling around our own,
of rivers flowing out of the tears of our own eyes,
of flying wagons to the moon.
She was a pioneer of the unknown,
an explorer of the pitch black (sprinkled with stardust)
and of the tangled ruins that haunted backyards.
She was so much like a Big Bang that’d happened right here —
and I was just lucky enough to witness it.
Her long, long hair was a waterfall that swept people off their feet,
and her freckles were constellations people studied with telescopes
so they could find out her secrets.
If people were dice, she would have been a double six
(rolled six times in a row).
She was a mess, a mess that managed to fix everything at once.
When she left someone, their head was in the heavens,
spinning upon clouds and filled with helium.
She was a contagious laugh that infected the body
and made it hard to breathe.
When she sang, birds flew into her open mouth
and went to her heart, making it even larger.
When she went places, people inched closer,
as if she were a flame and everything else was ice.
She was a good book, worn in from too many uses;
she was a new pair of shoes that never got old;
she was a box of old notes from a loved one.
When she met people, they wondered if it was déjà vu —
because she reminded them of a past life they’d had.
She was a strange, brilliant coincidence.
She was irony, used with wit in the best moments.
She never let anybody talk her down.
Her eyes could look into the soul —
pluck the heartstrings, massage the aches, and brighten the skin.
She left footprints all over the beach, and messages in the sand,
and talked to everyone she met.
And when she did, their conversations sprouted like flowers —
wild, untamed flowers, with hues blinding and bright …
Read the complete poem at youngwritersproject.org/node/26868.