Kianga van Oerle is 16 and lives in Westdene. She submitted a lovely poem about the power of music and how it can be an important and healing part of life:
Music.
Everyone loves it
It connects us
It sends a rush of energy down our spines
It makes us jump up and move
It makes us happy
Music fills us up with emotions
Its words telling everything a person wants to say but cant
Killing the harsh silence of the world
We clasp onto the rhythms, the beats, the melodies as if we are nothing without them
We are right to clasp, because what are we without music?
We are people. Standing in the dark.
Suffering in this infinite silence, hearing nothing but our own thoughts and people breathing, talking
When we sit alone with music
We do not feel the same rush
We do not feel the happiness
But still, we feel comfortable
Comfortable because weve gotten used to it
The familiarity of the sadness
The sadness is like a friend
And music is its companion
Being alone with music
Is like disappearing into a world of our own
A world where no one can hurt us, a world where we dont want to run
Without it, we are stuck in this damn reality that we are constantly trying to escape.