Flight

This year the Vancouver International Writers Festival, in partnership with Youthink magazine held a writing contest for grade 8 – 12 students.

At the beginning of a class period, students were given the following words: compost, Skytrain, Facebook, sob, what if, labyrinth. They had to write any form of prose, poetry short story, screenplay etc within the class period, using all those words.

From approximately 1600 participants, here is the grade 12 winner!

What if we were seagulls?
What if we could soar above the waves?
Our friends , your brother, my cousin Vicky
Would be a million miles below,
And we’d scream at them, “Ha!”
But, with our seagull voices, it would
Sound more like, “Pour quoi?!” and they’d be totally confused.
(Are seagulls French or something?)
How they would sob, driven mad with envy!
They’d update their Facebook with ☹ ‘s and sad lyrics
And whenever they lifted their faces to the sapphire skies,
To see our white feathers dancing with the clouds,
They’d shed a quiet tear.
But not us.
If we were seagulls, we could swoop down at old ladies and make them shriek
“Oh mylanta!” and come down with the vapours
(Whatever those are)
And then we could peck and
Screech and scream and snatch
At Mark, that jerk who threw my homework
In the compost last year.
In fact, if we were seagulls, we’d throw
ALL of our homework in the compost (and probably eat it too)
And maybe get our heads stuck in those plastic
six pack rings like those birds you see on CBC
That make you say, “Oh, the poor thing.” And then you
Get all sentimental whenever you see that commercial
Where they’re washing the duck with dishsoap and
I always wondered if the dishsoap got in their eyes
But then I remember that ducks have a second eyelid.
But we are seagulls, not ducks,
So let’s not swim in any oil spills.
If we were seagulls, we could flap high above the city
And see it laid out before us, a twisting labyrinth
Like those mazes we got in grade three
That you’d always cheat at (Dug under the wall, my ass)
And everything would taste like Seattle
Salty and cold, and like biscotti and turtlenecks
And alternative grunge music.
If we were seagulls, we’d perch on the Skytrain
And see who could hold on the longest,
Scrabbling desperately with bright orange flip flop feet.
So, what if we were seagulls?
We’d play in garbage, and I wouldn’t be failing math
And Connie couldn’t rip out your hair extensions
Like in that fight you had last year,
And we’d be totally rad progressive seagulls
With Mohawks and green pinfeathers
And we’d start a re-imagination band
Based off that band, Flock of Seagulls
And it would be so cool.
But we’re not seagulls.
We’re just two kids sitting on a beach
Counting ripples as we throw pebbles in the ocean.