Young Friends Talk About Themselves

 

Peace

 

Fighting peacefully against armed brothers and sisters;

Four thousand pens were dropped,

four thousand bags taken,

and four thousand pairs of feet took to the streets.

 

Marching on a hopeless hope, we gathered to face our faceless leaders.

Instead we were met by their blind carriers of orders.

And we sang, and we sat and we shouted.

And they pushed, and they pounced and pounded.

Peace is for justice, peace is for prosperity, peace for freedom, peace for equality.

 

I walked up to a policeman whose horse had trampled on a young girl, to ask how she was after her ‘accident’.

The policeman didn’t know.

 

I ran towards a policeman who was hitting a young Iraqi boy with a truncheon, to ask what the boy had done.

The policeman didn’t answer.

 

I wrote on the pavement,

warning my student companions,

of how the police were aggravating the situation,

of their corruption of our peaceful voice,

how violence breeds violence.

 

A policeman ran up to me and dragged me from the protest,

scrubbing out my chalked words with his cold black leather boot.

 

I left knowing peace is for peace, is for peace, for peace for ever.

 

Jaimie Grant


 

 

So. How do you start these things? It’s like, when someone says “Just say something” and you can’t think of anything to say. Just like that. How do you begin to explain the life of something as complex as a human being. As Hamlet said “What a piece of work is a man. How infinite in faculties.”

You don’t want it to sound really cheesy, all like “Hello, I’m Freya” Like you’re at an AA meeting. Yet It always ends up like that. I still have to start somewhere.

I am the girl who holds her pen differently. Not wrongly. Just differently. After all, there is no law that says everyone should hold their pen in the stupid, uncomfortable way they teach you at school.

I can’t dance. Well, I can, just very, very badly. I can’t write that well, and I’m not very good at talking to people. Being constantly put down by your older sibling seriously damages your self-esteem.

So what can I do? I dream. The only way to escape the eternal drudge of the routine that is my life. Get up. Get the train. Go to college. So I drift in my thoughts. It kills your attention span, but at least it stops me going slowly insane.

I am the quiet one. The one who never expresses an opinion. I sit there and people say “You’re awful quiet today. Are you alright?” and I shrug and continue saying nothing. I am the cat who walks alone.

Individuality is something I strive for. Like so many other people. So therefore, does it actually count as being individual? Probably. As everyone is individual in their own way. I’m talking rubbish again. Do that far too often.

Freyci Massey 16/04/03

Simplicity

 

I lie in a comfy bed reading a well worn book, relishing the free morning spread out before me. It is the weekend and I have no worries of work or people to see. As I read, an idea forms at first almost subconsciously but as it develops it engulfs almost every cell in my brain. It is perhaps triggered off by this one character I read about. He is a similar age to me but his circumstances are so far removed from mine as to be unimaginable. While only fictional, he evokes great sympathy in me. He must wake at four each morning to fetch water, tend to a few animals wandering around his yard and then prepare medicine for his AIDS stricken mother. At six he walks five miles to the nearest town where he works in a sweatshop until eight that night. He must then walk back home before he can grab a few hours sleep until the next morning when it all starts again. And that’s it, that’s his life.

 

As I snuggle down into a yet more comfortable posture, various feelings mount in my chest. I know this story, or at least a few billion similar ones, to be common place. What comes to mind is the thought that if faced with this boy, how could I excuse myself, what difference could I give for the abject difference in our lifestyles and prospects. Try as I might, no such excuse or reason becomes apparent as it becomes increasingly obvious that there is none. There is only injustice and unfairness and I could never look this boy in the eye.

 

Comfortably snuggled as I now am, self loathing and embarrassment have ruined any chance I may have had of relishing it. I can’t see past such injustice and it fills me with despair and hopelessness. I must get myself out of this, to remain feeling like I do is unbearable. I force myself to think, perhaps I’m not as helpless or ineffectual as I feel. Perhaps there is something I can do to address the balance.

 

Michael Wild


I’m a lost soul,

I’ve been here before. That I can tell you.

If you are like me you’ll know what I mean

I have a lot to learn though.

I’m not sure just how old I am,

But for your sanity I’ll say 16.

I wonder what I was like before,

Who was I?

Was I important?

Well, did I have a point of authority?

Why have I forgotten my past?

Well,

To be but back here with all knowledge would suck.

What could I achieve?

I have an ambition now.

Not to be a millionaire or to own a fast car

I want my knowledge back in my conscious mind

I’ll go searching the world gathering myself to one,

Then I’ll be happy....

 

Josh Arrindell