Robin Flew

by Monica Janvier, age 14
Monica Janvier is currently fourteen years old and is moving on to 10th grade. She attends Edward R. Murrow High School and is in the Writers' Institute at her school. She is hardworking and is passionate about writing. She hopes to one day become a lawyer and freelance writer.

“she hid in her backyard by the swings that she never sat on.
She had stolen her father’s matches and kissed it with her hair,
just to see “what would happen.”
If she would become life.”

Robin was the type of 7-year-old,

who fell in love with fire after watching her father light his cigarettes.

Smoke from his burning soul would roam the air that Robin would swim in.

 

She fell in love with the fire’s dance,

and liked the way it burned things,

slowly then almost instantly,

which reminded her of how fragile life is.

 

On the fourth of July,

she hid in her backyard by the swings that she never sat on.

She had stolen her father’s matches and kissed it with her hair,

just to see “what would happen.”

If she would become life.

Burn slowly,

then instantly.

 

She watched her lover the same way it disappeared off her twelve candles.

The same year she disappeared into silence for seven months,

as she watched her mother slowly rot alive.

 

Her teeth were stuck together,

as if her mouth had been sewn shut.

She was a sculpture,

and like falling stone, she cracked.

She broke through the silence once she feared of forgetting how to speak.

 

Four years later,

like trains passing by,

night passed.

And like the child she still was,

Robin climbed on top of her roof every day to feel like a giant in her world.

She learned how to fall in love with the wind,

because she swore it felt like she was underwater.

The thought made her feel infinite.

She’d climb and climb everyday,

until she decided to fall,

just to see if she could still feel.

 

As the globe turned,

and people left,

Robin stayed and met numerous lovers.

she fell in love with a shadow that saved her from her reflection.

Its dark and piercing eyes that peaked through her soul,

felt familiar of a once lost dream.

 

Like smooth skin,

A polished knife laid on her throat.

With sweat, and rivers running through the skife,

she threatened to leave if he ever left.

 

She couldn’t breathe with or without him.

She told him how much he burned her,

slowly,

then almost instantly.

He made her feel stuck at the bottom of the ocean,

and frozen from the smoke that she once swam in.

But like the sun to moon,

he fell.

And like the wind,

Robin flew.