Acer Sacharrum

     My name is Lucy Danto. I am in the eighth grade at the McCullough Junior High School in Texas. Please, if even for a brief moment, let my voice be heard. 

There is a man on the corner of 87th and Amsterdam. I do not know him, and he does not know me. He wears a red tee-shirt with red sweatpants. He wears a red coat with red shoes. He wears a red ski mask on his face.

Why won't the sky explode in a burst of orange-yellow-red radiance, turning each moment golden? Or fade into lavender laced with blue and whisper-pink, the world muffled and soft around the edges?

My friend, on New Year’s Eve, learned a new word.

I can't shake the feeling

That I'll never be one of them

Girls with lives made of honey and laughter,

Girls with someone who looks at them

Like they're laced with something unknown and magical,