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This week, we offer responses to the following challenges: Self-Portrait. Write about yourself in a positive way. Express an appreciation for your own best qualities, talents, ideas, activities and hopes and dreams. And general writing.
Prompt: Self-Portrait
By Grace Nostrant
Age 14, Bradford, Vt.
It is hard for a teenage girl to love herself in this day and age. With all of the standards we are expected to live up to, it can be tough. In a world full of haters, sometimes one needs to take a step back and realize just how amazing they are.
I love myself. It may sound a bit narcissistic to say, but it is true. I love all of my perfect imperfections. From my nonexistent curves to my bellowing laugh, I love it all. It feels great to say that, too — I haven’t complimented myself in a long time. Sure, my family, friends, and sometimes people I don’t even know say how “amazing” and “beautiful” I am, but I am so hard on myself that I never really acknowledge much of anything I do well. It is something I have to work on, and what better way to work on it than write about it?
I enjoy playing soccer and basketball more than almost anything. I never say this out loud because I want to avoid sounding complacent, but I am very skilled at both of them — and I work really, really hard to maintain those high skill levels. I am also pretty good at painting, acting, singing, academics, and more. Although that all sounds awfully overconfident of me to say, I’m just calling it as I see it.
I also love my personality. I am willing to admit that I can be a little bit intense sometimes, but it’s just who I am, and I love that side of myself. I am a strong, beautiful, intelligent, kind-hearted, competitive, loyal, annoying, silly, wonderful human being, and I couldn’t be more proud of who I have become.
By Kelly Daigle
Age 17, Bradford, Vt.
I am the one who can find only the bad parts of things —
the one who knows the glass is half full and half empty,
and chooses the empty.
I’m that girl who is quiet, reserved within herself,
lost in a world inside her head. One day she will write
about that world, once she has explored every corner herself.
There is no place that I cannot see
without thinking of the beauty, imagining the colors
on a piece of paper hanging on a wall.
To me, the world is too silent;
the wind in the trees is not enough to cover the sounds
of buses beeping and car engines sputtering.
And because of that, I take what the world gives me.
I listen to the Earth’s music and add in my own melody,
strumming on ukulele strings and pressing piano keys.
One day I will travel to the stars,
dance my way through galaxies,
and greet friends from other worlds.
I am a single girl in a world half full of them,
and while I’m not the best at seeing the bright side of things…
with the sun shining so strongly, how can I not?
Prompt: General
By Eden Anne Bauer
Age 15, Hanover
Humans are full of faults
to a fault,
chasing the idea of perfection
being in itself a flaw.
When, inevitably, we do fall,
we have devised our means
to appease all,
such as test retakes
and apologies.
Apologies
are part of every preschool’s teachings,
a way to pay back the wounded
and, in theory, show we care.
Words drip like honey,
seemingly see-through
but deceptively sticky
and clinging to clichés —
all to show we’ve found a fault
in the fault we committed, to a fault,
by faulting another.
Now, I’m not saying we should abandon morals,
for human society is built on our relationships,
and kindness, love, and compassion are the ways
to a stronger, brighter future.
I simply think it odd
that we find fault in everything we do —
we define our morals by our faults,
and always search ourselves
for imperfections.
So next time you sit down with yourself
and have a decent conversation with your thoughts,
or look in the mirror, afraid of what you’ll see,
remember not to fault yourself. For we,
accustomed to the fault-finding world we’re in,
easily convince ourselves to see
ourselves as not meeting some standard —
that we are full of faults instead.
Remember that faults are only
things that don’t meet standards of normality,
those sets of rules and expectations
we think are perfect (though nothing is so).
And these faults make us human, for if we were
all the same, nothing would ever happen.
No doubt I’ll look back and fault myself for writing this,
a poem full of faults as I will say —
yet perhaps the faults that make it different
will make me look back and smile someday.