By Lina Murat Mariani, age 11, New York. 

As I stand here, looking at this blank sheet of paper
Trying to describe how it felt when I looked back on the plane that day
All I remember is forgetting—
Forgetting home.
That plane was Odysseus’ ship
Sailing to a strange land,
Leaving but fading memories
A puppet in time’s grip.
Looking back and seeing all my life
Ashes for someone else’s dream to be born from
My home was but naked walls,
Perfect for someone’s paintings and trophies
All my life was a few boxes
And everyone says I should look forward to my new home
But why, if everything would be pictures of people that could be here? Windows into my melted life?
I had already moved on before,
And all that were just undone stitches now.
Why did my home had to be a comfy sweater,
One that people could just throw away?
Why was home meaningless as this sheet of paper?
This new home was my grave—
And worse, the grave of my life.
I look around, feeling like a trapped bug in the full-wall windowed room.
At least Odysseus had iron and blood to fight for his home.
All I had was my swift pen
My empty words
And this blank, meaningless sheet of paper.

—Lina Murat Mariani, age 11, from New York. Currently, she is in Brazil with her family.

Lina explains her poem, “Usually, poems are not read for the reasons they were written. Sometimes, they’re read because of the poet who writes them, but normally, it’s about more than that. Poems are read because the right poem doesn’t just paint a profound or beautiful picture. They paint you. They paint your whole existence, the doubts that consume you like a wildfire, or the hopes that lift your chin up. It’s that tangled mess of red strings and emotions that makes up your life. The right poem echoes your every thought, your every action, the treasure trove of who you are. 

“My reason to write this poem, which I call Home, may be selfish, or childish. It is because three months ago, I watched, helpless and silent, as we got onto that plane to move here, to Brazil. It’s because I have seen everything disappear in the blink of an eye, behind mountains and oceans. It’s because I long for that feeling of being in the U.S., instead of Brazil, with my friends, my teachers, my family, before it was all broken… I write about that strange and wonderful feeling of being home, like a warm blanket that hides fear, sadness, and anything else, because I know I am where I belong, and that can’t change. Until it did. And, more than all, I wrote this poem because I resent that all I can do to go back is write some words on an otherwise blank paper, and those words are just as easily ripped as the paper that binds them. I write because I am bound to this land, as words are to paper, and all I can do is watch as destiny writes my story, my cry swallowed and lost on that horrible day when I saw my entire life being packed up and dragged away.”