Zoe Riell, a senior who is homeschooled in Poultney, has been writing on her Young Writers Project blog for four years. She is also a mentor for Young Writers Project and is being published this year in YWP’s Anthology 6.
Zoe says she wrote “Gone Spacewalking” while thinking about the Columbia space shuttle disaster of 2003. “I've dreamed of becoming an astronaut since I was five, so I had asked myself, ‘if I had the chance to go to space but knew ahead of time that I would suffer a similar fate, would it still be worth it? Would I still go?’ I couldn't come up with a black-and-white answer, but this poem was the end result.”
Gone Spacewalking
By Zoe Riell
Grade Twelve, Homeschooled
Her entire life is spent watching
the marathons. Never did like
to take part
in the cheering; sits quiet
by the roadside, blinking
slow.
Talks about space a lot; talks about
the stars and pulsars, and lists
off her favorite galaxies
on composition paper.
Always murmuring about
how she'll go to space someday,
how it'll be like coming home.
It's gravity.
Gravity makes her watch
the marathons.
She cries every time
she feels the weight of her tissues
and bones shifting
in her heel. Weeps and makes lists
of black holes on composition paper.
During the marathons, she sits roadside
and thinks
about the universe.
Always talks about how
she can't wait to go home.
Learn more about the Young Writers Project.
