No one can tell me I'm too young 22.2.22....................................................................................29

No one can tell me I’m too young

by Dafni Vitsou

I was five or maybe six, I can’t remember, but that’s not what really matters actually. What really matters is that I met him… the love of my life. Or at least I thought so…

It was my first month in elementary school and I was not happy at all to have left kindergarten. My world was falling apart! I had six hours of lessons with a terrible teacher (she was kind, sweet and patient…), there weren’t any board games and puzzles to play during recess (even though I had actually thought they were boring…) and I hated my noisy classmates! (I still do, but anyway…). My life was a mess!

It was a sunny Friday afternoon, and my friends thought it would be a nice idea to race from the classroom door to the big tree at the far end of the school yard. I always came last in races, but I did my best to reach the big tree, running as fast as I could. I was nearly there, trailing only two of my friends, when suddenly, what a shame, I tripped and fell right in front of a very tall, extremely handsome sixth-grade boy!

“Are you all right?” he asked me anxiously, as I got up trying to put on a brave face. I felt so embarrassed that I was short for words. I just stood there, looking at him, as if I was completely frozen. I would have definitely started crying, if he hadn’t been standing there. When he realized I was not hurt he said, “Be careful, " breathed a sigh of relief, and left.

I was thrilled! He was the love of my life! The one and only! We would definitely get married and have three children. Suddenly, my scraped knee and my friends meant nothing to me. I was in love! But as I was standing on the schoolyard, speechless, watching him disappear in the crowd, I realized something that I should have realized so long ago (five minutes before, actually). He was twelve and I was six. He was almost an adult and I was just a girl. It could never work out! What could I, an ordinary mortal, do?

I wasn’t in the mood for stupid races anymore. All I could think of was him, for one whole afternoon! I would just sit on my desk daydreaming without even listening to math, the class that I was normally an ace at. I didn’t even know his name. What could it be? Where was his house? Was it close to mine? Did he think of me at all?

An end was put to all of those questions when I got home and learned that we were having pizza for dinner. That was very exciting as well, and made me forget about the mysterious knight. But when Monday came and I had to go to school, I would sometimes stare at the big tree at the far end of the schoolyard during the break to see if he was there. That lasted for about a week. Then I completely forgot about his existence.

Elementary school, foot races and mysterious knights gave way to high school, big chemistry books and disappointing dates. The other day, ten years later, I saw him walking down the street and I recognized him. I hadn’t thought of him for so long! All those memories suddenly came back. He was so important to me for one whole Friday afternoon. But there was one thing that really surprised me. I was taller than him!

22.2.22 by Alexia Sextou

I want to be a poem.

I told you I write, I blushed I thought about saying how I could make you into one Instead I said you could b e w r i t t e n ; passive voice.

No, I don ’t want to be written about in a poem –I want to be a poem.

You looked up at the ceiling I thought, another delirium of yours Yet suddenly this musing startled me, For how could anyone be a poem at all? You do not rhyme or sound a song You are not traced on paper. I thought about how Poetry is feeling; entity and art; it is not its own until it makes us feel I thought, how strange, Boy Wants to Be Art.

I realized then How irrationally sensible what you had said could be; So long as you make me feel something You ’ll forever be poetry to me.

- This is how you ’ll sound all the way to North Carolina