Kids' Creations

Pick up the pencil.

It is a thin, yellow rocket.

Its point is a sleeping, black needle.

The paper is a wide, nervous field.

It's waiting for the heavy stamp of a line.

When you push down,

the lead lets out a silent, quick shriek.

It smells like cold batteries.

You are not drawing a dog.

You are pushing the pencil

to find the exact spot where the air is wobbly.

The curve you make?

It is the shape of a secret whispered backward.

Your doodle becomes a small city

made of tired glue and sharp corners.

A world where the numbers

are flat, scared fish hiding under the letters.

Go faster.

Make the pencil smoke.

Let it build a wobbly, quick tower

out of scraps of yesterday's thought.

The story is not on the page.

The story is the sound of the graphite running away

before the eraser can catch it.

The doorbell is not just a button.

It is a shining, cold pebble

that holds the whole day still.

When your finger touches it,

the air inside the house becomes

a long, smooth piece of green glass.

The sound it makes? That ding-dong?

It is actually the voice of a happy, hungry robot

who has something to show you.

It sounds like sneezing into a metal bowl.

If you push the button seven times fast,

the wire inside the wall starts wiggling—

it's a nervous, copper snake

trying to tell the front doormat

a joke about a lump of pink sugar.

The lightbulb in the hallway

suddenly feels too heavy for its own head.

It wants to roll down and hide

behind the fluffy slippers of silence.

What happens next is always the secret.

The door swings open like a giant, friendly shadow,

and everything outside looks like

it has been painted with a brush made of sheer joy

and the color "almost-forgotten-purple."