Page 40 - Nous 302

Nous du Collège N 302 - Mars 2025
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disappointed not to find my name there. As I scrolled Because it was a great experience and I cannot thank
down, I noticed that my name was mentioned. I had won enough everyone that was involved in helping me shape
the General Merit award for my touching entry and my my entry.
young age. I was ecstatic. For this last bit, I’d like to share an extract of what I wrote
I was mostly glad that they liked it. That it meant for the competition. It’s the end of my entry and when
something to them, considering the situation. That I was I finished it, I sat back and stared at my computer for a
Kaléidoscope Scolaire
good minute. I felt good.
able to share my experience.

“I don’t stop running.
I run until I cannot feel my feet.
I run until I am completely out of breath.
I run until I am one with the sky and parted from
the earth.
I have transformed into some sort of bird, I must have. I have flown too close to the sun and I am now
And I am soaring through the sky, carefree of any plummeting.
40 worries, hopeful for the first time in years. I thought too greatly; I hoped too much; I wished
I am flying above Beirut’s skyline and I pass by a too hard.
buzzing drone. I scream and flap my wings at it. It Thoughts, facts, statistics, reality; They all make
makes an odd sound and speeds away. their way back to me and I am falling, wings flailing
I raise higher still, reaching the clouds. There, I find in front of me, feathers being ripped, limbs getting
a war plane. I bite at its metal edges with my beak. twisted.
Its metal edges are so different from my feathers. I am falling towards the shining ocean of my beloved
So unnatural. country. I can see Beirut’s curve from up here.
To my great surprise, it leaves. I am falling towards the sea that has mothered me
since I was a child. The same sea I learned to swim
And I am flying up, up, up… in. The same sea I missed every winter. The same
My freedom has no limit. I am forever a creature of sea I lived beside every single day.
the sky, cursed to enjoy the simplicity of flight. I am The mediterranean sea is welcoming back its child
conditioned to feel the wind against my feathers, with open arms as if her child had done no wrong.
rolling through them as if they were home. I am As if her child hadn’t dreamt too big.
made to soar and whiz higher and higher still. As if her child hadn’t hoped too great.
And I think I might have freed my people. I think As if her child was always made to find her way
that maybe, all of this anger, all of this frustration is back to her.
what turned me into a bird. And I meet her with the same warmth she is giving me.
I am free. I meet her with my bleeding heart.
I am the vengeance of my people. I meet her with ten thousand four hundred and fifty
I am the revenge my generation has been craving two square kilometers etched across my skin.
for like starved men. I meet her with the blood of generations upon
I am the curse my ancestors kept praying would generations of pain.
befall this great evil. I meet her with patriotism to a fault brimming in
I am the savior of my descendants. my eyes.
I am the personal weapon of my rage and I am I meet her with my red, white and green flag raised
being wielded the way I was always meant to. high. The cedar behind me. The sea in front of me.
But I am Icarus. And I am not afraid.
I have never been afraid of home.”
Christina Assy Te