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25th February 2001

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18

Thank you for all your contributions to the page on "18" The 100 Word page is looking for new creative ideas on a particular theme as well as good writing - so as long as you can write well, anything which strikes you according to the theme given will be welcome.

Please remember the 100 word limit though.

The theme for March is "EDGE". Please send in your contributions before March 17 to

Madhubashini Ratnayake,
C/o The Sunday Times,
No. 8, Hunupitiya Cross Rd,
Colombo 2.

  • 18 to Eighty
  • I wish I'm eighteen again
  • Rebellious Eighteen
  • To be 18
  • Those wild, wild dreams
  • At the eighteenth hurdle
  • Eighteen
  • After 18 what next?
  • Death

  • 18 to Eighty

    Her Victorian grand-mother
    She'd been told.........
    Married at fifteen,
    Was a mother of three
    By eighteen.
    Left dozens of descendants
    To fill the family tree.

    She's a modern independent girl
    Of eighteen....
    She cares about orphans
    Human and animal victims
    Of unbelievable cruelty.
    She's a trainee teacher..........
    She knows how violence
    Boils and bubbles beneath
    The solid serene earth.

    She remembers with sadness
    Her young mother (only from photographs)
    She had bled to death despite
    The medicine men.
    She had married in the bloom
    Of her emerging womanhood.
    She was eighteen.

    Jegatheeswari Nagendran


    I wish I'm eighteen again

    He comes home victorious
    The champion's cup in his hand
    Looks in the mirror to see
    How much of a man he is.
    Oh! I wish I'm eighteen again

    He laughs with his friends
    As they crack silly jokes
    But the dialect they speak
    I fail to comprehend
    And I wish I'm eighteen again

    He goes into the blues
    Keeps awake at night, listens to sad songs
    For the girl has left him
    Now he feels alone in the world,
    I wish I'm eighteen again

    I'm old and gray
    My bones ache when I walk away
    With blurred vision I see my grandson
    Full of spirit and full of life.
    And I wish I am eighteen again!

    Jayatilake


    Rebellious Eighteen

    Sixteen is sweet.
    So they say.
    A flower blooming at its best.
    But then-
    Eighteen is the crossroads of youth.
    At eighteen they get confused.
    And they rebel.
    Not with any particular aim.
    Just for a change,
    for better or for worse.

    Sunanda Mahawela


    To be 18

    Be eighteen
    Ace the ultimate test
    See mom smile
    Be on top of the world.
    Kiss that special rose
    See her eyes water
    Be faithful.
    Hit top speed in a convertible
    See the gaping mouths
    Be over the moon.
    Vote proper
    See the system change
    Be responsible.
    Stand on your own
    See dad's proud face
    Be respected.
    End the child within
    See the world spin
    Be.............. bored!
    Oh! No!
    Never!

    Thushara Chathuranga


    Those wild, wild dreams

    It wasn't yesterday
    It only seems that way
    I was eighteen
    My heart full of dreams
    The world at my feet
    Then the inevitable happened
    I grew up!
    The man in my deams
    I married
    The life I always dreamed of
    I lived.
    "Now I have everything"
    And maybe I do
    But those wild, wild dreams
    I don't have them anymore.

    Shashini


    At the eighteenth hurdle

    Left behind are immature notions,
    As I'm poised to leap the hurdle
    'Too much time and toil have been wasted,'
    I feel,
    To grab the liberty and euphoria ahead.
    But wait!

    The once lucid panorama appears blurred,
    In a light-tinged fog.
    Was it a too realistic illusion?
    Or a too illusive reality?
    I ponder,
    And as I look back,
    The grass looks greener than ever behind me.

    Sachithra Somarathna


    Eighteen

    Million years old
    Dash of starlight glistening in an
    eighteen-year-old's eyes.

    Rohini Gooneratne Cooray


    After 18 what next?

    Waiting impatiently at nine, to be ten,
    Dreaming badly at ten, to be thirteen,
    Then wondering when I'll be sweet sixteen,
    and next excited about eighteen,
    Finally became a young adult, but there's no
    Excitement as such...........
    Twenty one and go on?

    By N. Palliyaguru


    Death

    He was thinking; about his home,
    ageing parents, sister and brother still at school
    The leak in the roof, the crack in the wall
    When the crossfire started and the bullet hit him
    He was just eighteen
    Oblivious to all this
    In a five star hotel
    another young man
    thought about the new Ferrari
    the girls and the dances
    when the bomb went off.
    He was eighteen too.

    Veranja Liyanapathirana
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