This could be the anthem for the entire session of Teens Writing from the Heart of Illness & Healing.

This is the cover of the anthology of the teen’s writings. After 8 weeks of reading and writing prompts in which a diverse group of students gradually opened up about the health issues they deal with, through their writing, we gathered them into this final version.  They were a reticent group to begin with, or perhaps, just more reserved overall than the previous two groups, and they came from the eastside of Lake Washington, Beacon Hill and the central area in Seattle.

The poem from which the title was taken was written by a senior in high school. It was actually the last thing she wrote, written surprisingly quickly from a prompt on the second to last session that my co-teacher, Aaron Counts provided. The prompt started as a way to get them to write a brief biography of themselves in 24 words. In each successive version they had to reduce the “biography” by half, eventually whittling it down to one word.  Then, they were to take that one word and write a poem from it. Falling is the name of the poem and I am including it (but not the author’s name)  here.

 

Falling

 

Falling into a dark hole.

Someone catch me,

don’t let me fall.

Catching myself fast

to try and land on my feet.

Maybe falling feels better,

not knowing where I’m going

Fear, discomfort, curiosity, darkness.

I’m done falling, I landed on my feet.

I made it, but I’m not done,

I never am.

 

For a copy of this anthology or any of the other two, please let me know. I am especially happy to get them into the hands of anyone working with chronically ill kids in any setting..