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"Looking into your lifeless eyes, I smile. I don't need you to break my heart again. Your lies, stealing of trust and just about anything a father could do to rip his daughter's heart out..." So begins one of the poems 13-year old Ashley will recite at the Poetry Reading, a year-end event orchestrated by Kathleen Wooddell, her beloved creative writing teacher. In Ms. Wooddell's class, no holds are barred. It is a place where students learn to express long-suppressed feelings and to trust that they will be heard and understood, if not at home, then at least here in their middle school classroom.

This year's Reading will be different. The students have been asked to write about something they want to tell their parents, but have found too difficult to talk about. If they chose, they can read their poems and letters aloud, before an audience of invited guests. Battling a jumble of emotions - fear, longing, rage, hope - they sit down to write what they have never dared to say.

Watch as these students and their classmates get up to read their hearts out. Some worry what their parents will think or do, but it doesn't stop them. Bravely, they embark on a new chapter in their young lives, full of danger and promise.

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