If Doing What You Loved Paid Bills
Lucille Harper Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
My name means light. A core of orange magma,
glowing yellow streams, hidden
beneath years of built-up sediment. Seven-years old,
my dad lets me steer the shopping cart, whispering numbers to himself.
His fingertips graze over a box of cereal, his hand retracting,
numbers catching on his tongue; we keep walking.
I always thought I’d be an author when I grew up
but every time my parents talk about the bank account, they deposit
more soil, swallowing little crevasses of light,
and I forget the feeling of a thumb sore: red and indented
from hours of writing with a pen.
We left the milk by the cash register—
my first memory: Watching my dad’s card decline.
At a job fair, I spun a “career wheel” and watched
the tiny tick mark teeter between the black lines,
caught between paths. I wondered if my future
was in one of those bolded words, or stuck
on the border, separating money from dreams.
If I were an author, nights would be for stargazing.
Peering at white ink blots seeping into the black pages of space.
My dog and I would live on a small pasture, admiring
what’s left of the lilacs in winter. For my younger self,
light was a palette of watercolors, a box of pens spilling oranges and yellows
onto a blank page. For me now, light is a flickering beam, lost
beneath layers of bills and used clothes piles from the Goodwill,
the shopping cart leaving my palms sweaty,
the barrier between me and the shovel I need
to dent the dried mud bottling up all this light.
______________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“I was born in the afternoon, when the sun was at its highest point. I was born in the light, my name attestation that there were always parts of me meant to shine. Too often I think that people shy away from doing what they really love because an account balance outweighs art in our society. Even though I have so much love for writing, I’ve bottled it up, attempting to replace it with images of a future in the highest-paying career. This piece is not only the trace fossil of that struggle, but also a way of breaking out of the mold I’ve put myself in. My hope is that this trace fossil will give readers the courage to let themselves shine, embracing all the light they have.”
Lucille Harper (age 14) is a freshman creative writing major at the Charleston School of the Arts. She is a Scholastic Art and Writing medalist, an American Voice Award nominee, and first-place winner of the Charleston Literary Festival’s Young Writers Awards.
If Doing What You Loved Paid Bills
Lucille Harper | Young Writers Issue | Poetry, Winter 2025
My name means light. A core of orange magma,
glowing yellow streams, hidden
beneath years of built-up sediment. Seven-years old,
my dad lets me steer the shopping cart, whispering numbers to himself.
His fingertips graze over a box of cereal, his hand retracting,
numbers catching on his tongue; we keep walking.
I always thought I’d be an author when I grew up
but every time my parents talk about the bank account, they deposit
more soil, swallowing little crevasses of light,
and I forget the feeling of a thumb sore: red and indented
from hours of writing with a pen.
We left the milk by the cash register—
my first memory: Watching my dad’s card decline.
At a job fair, I spun a “career wheel” and watched
the tiny tick mark teeter between the black lines,
caught between paths. I wondered if my future
was in one of those bolded words, or stuck
on the border, separating money from dreams.
If I were an author, nights would be for stargazing.
Peering at white ink blots seeping into the black pages of space.
My dog and I would live on a small pasture, admiring
what’s left of the lilacs in winter. For my younger self,
light was a palette of watercolors, a box of pens spilling oranges and yellows
onto a blank page. For me now, light is a flickering beam, lost
beneath layers of bills and used clothes piles from the Goodwill,
the shopping cart leaving my palms sweaty,
the barrier between me and the shovel I need
to dent the dried mud bottling up all this light.
________________________________________________________________________
Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?
“I was born in the afternoon, when the sun was at its highest point. I was born in the light, my name attestation that there were always parts of me meant to shine. Too often I think that people shy away from doing what they really love because an account balance outweighs art in our society. Even though I have so much love for writing, I’ve bottled it up, attempting to replace it with images of a future in the highest-paying career. This piece is not only the trace fossil of that struggle, but also a way of breaking out of the mold I’ve put myself in. My hope is that this trace fossil will give readers the courage to let themselves shine, embracing all the light they have.”
Lucille Harper (age 14) is a freshman creative writing major at the Charleston School of the Arts. She is a Scholastic Art and Writing medalist, an American Voice Award nominee, and first-place winner of the Charleston Literary Festival’s Young Writers Awards.
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