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VPR's coverage of arts and culture in the region.

Young Writers Project: Drugged

Madi Cohen
Hannah Freedner of Vergennes, who is combining her junior and senior years of high school, wrote her piece to describe the fleeting feeling when all seems to be going well.

I take it like a drug, one that falls
like rain over my open skin,
drink it in like water
until it runs in my blood
knowing nothing but this feeling,
nothing but euphoria of this moment.

It is palpable, yes, but only then
when it soaks into my skin. 
I crave it, yearn for it,
can't keep the grin off my face
when it coalesces with my blood. 

They don't have a name for it, no,
so I call it life,
when my heart doesn't beat evenly
in my chest but is rather
the paradox of an EKG,
and breathing isn't something
I understand the way one
might think. 

I strip right down to nothing but skin
and vulnerability;
sprawl on my back in the rain,
nose reaching higher 
than the crown of my head,
gills moving softly. 

I cackle at those who believe 
flying cannot be done,
taste the water that runs in rivulets
down my face,
feel it pool in the hollow of my throat. 
Every sense I can possibly comprehend
melts into the grass under my skin.

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