Friday, March 1, 2024 Meet the Youth Ambassador: Zelda
Posted at 09:00h
in Community, JBWC Youth Ambassador Program, Just Buffalo Writing Center, Young Writers
Zelda Abramovich is a poet and junior in high school. She has written for Scholastic Choices, Illustoria Magazine, Teen Ink, The WEIGHT Journal, and various local art organizations. A proud youth ambassador with Just Buffalo, she believes in run-on sentences and that the poems you are taught in high school will never be as good as the ones you find yourself.
Zelda has been an active member of the JBWC since 2021! Check out her poem “Dead Birds and Chained Nations,” written for the launch of the Youth Advocacy and Safety website at Buffalo Center for Arts & Technology.
“Dead Birds and Chained Nations”
a future bleeding fast food grease in my carpet doesn’t
come out of the closest but im caught on the frame of
the window to the
west sunrises because we couldn’t afford
sunsets on my grave as i brush
away dandelions back don’t come
closer is how i feel to Jonathan Swift in english
class action lawsuits are the same as
test me one last time and i might just jump onto a moving
train me how to punctuate sentences but not how to tie
my shoes have holes in their feet but i won’t
replace them he will say over the clatter of sewing
machines write poetry now did you know that
there have only been 373 school shootings since
columbine sunflower daffodil poppy seeds like gravel in my socks as
i walk into the supermarket to count the wrappers in my back
pocket the change and
tell my kids i love them
unconditionally depends on my health conditions and hope depends on my doctors omissions of a word here and
there you are i’ve been looking for my purpose i think i lost it with my temper when i punched that kid at the amusement
parking lots are graves of
only children can understand Jefferson’s folly that draws me to water like a one of those bugs that live in small pools of
monday morning sunshine good night moonshine and coke make a hell of a way to start a
tuesday we will reimagine
democracy as it crumbles into your
hand me the duct tape i want to salvage this shitstorm but i cant
see outside of my house is a dead bird splattered
across the street glass shatters at two in the
mourning but no funeral cause no one can find where they keep the
ashes were the first sign of Pompeii being buried alive and then
dead on the freeway to a chained nation there’s a phantom tollbooth and a
watch as the streets blur into standardized tests for an unstandardized
population control is painting a gun pink and calling it a
rose by any other
name me a monument that doesn’t perpetuate a white man’s
burden rests on the shoulders of our
children are the future the adults always say cause they don’t want to fix it themselves
cause no one can fix this living hell but the future
come out of the closest but im caught on the frame of
the window to the
west sunrises because we couldn’t afford
sunsets on my grave as i brush
away dandelions back don’t come
closer is how i feel to Jonathan Swift in english
class action lawsuits are the same as
test me one last time and i might just jump onto a moving
train me how to punctuate sentences but not how to tie
my shoes have holes in their feet but i won’t
replace them he will say over the clatter of sewing
machines write poetry now did you know that
there have only been 373 school shootings since
columbine sunflower daffodil poppy seeds like gravel in my socks as
i walk into the supermarket to count the wrappers in my back
pocket the change and
tell my kids i love them
unconditionally depends on my health conditions and hope depends on my doctors omissions of a word here and
there you are i’ve been looking for my purpose i think i lost it with my temper when i punched that kid at the amusement
parking lots are graves of
only children can understand Jefferson’s folly that draws me to water like a one of those bugs that live in small pools of
monday morning sunshine good night moonshine and coke make a hell of a way to start a
tuesday we will reimagine
democracy as it crumbles into your
hand me the duct tape i want to salvage this shitstorm but i cant
see outside of my house is a dead bird splattered
across the street glass shatters at two in the
mourning but no funeral cause no one can find where they keep the
ashes were the first sign of Pompeii being buried alive and then
dead on the freeway to a chained nation there’s a phantom tollbooth and a
watch as the streets blur into standardized tests for an unstandardized
population control is painting a gun pink and calling it a
rose by any other
name me a monument that doesn’t perpetuate a white man’s
burden rests on the shoulders of our
children are the future the adults always say cause they don’t want to fix it themselves
cause no one can fix this living hell but the future
and i’m worried for her