The start of the race isn’t always easy

They say to just put one foot in front of the other

Then repeat

How can you repeat that when you’re racing to find yourself?

I have been told

I am genuine

By my teachers

By my friends

By my family

When I was younger I wanted a different word

Humorous, pretty, or courageous

Now that I am older

I have realized

I walk through halls, the halls of a school. 

It’s a lot different than it was

Just five weeks ago.

I now know quite a few kids now,

They thought of me as the new kid,

The outsider, I don’t know if they still do.

There was once a bright, new, shiny car

with a big engine and all a child’s wildest dreams within.

This noble stallion would speed through all the others,

roaring by them like a lion chasing its prey

through its black-floored, circular jungle.

In my poem “Out of this World,” I explore the theme of oppression and the ways in which Leonard Peltier’s Prison Writings and Rachel Zucker’s “Paying Down the Debt: Happiness” evidence this central theme.

Who wishes...

she could live in the sunny, tropical Bahamian world for a summer

she could experience the ear-popping adventure

on an airplane

going place to place

visiting the breathtaking sights around planet Earth

I Wish

To create new and innovative objects

For the joy of finding a new building block of the universe

To write the published wonder that will spread throughout the world

To smell the delicious food in front of me, soon to be in cookbooks everywhere

I wonder.

I wonder who the person I’ll become in twenty years will be.

I wonder if I’ll be helping someone in desperate time of need,

or saving someone’s life on an empty street.

I wonder if the mountains I climb

lightly sunkissed skin and bright grey blue eyes

sympathetic, funny, crazy

daughter of a caring, loving mom named Carmen

who loves…

making new memories

gaining more friends

and…

laughing so hard my stomach hurts

I Wish I could travel across the world seeing different

places and meet different people,

I Wish I could travel through time and space seeing

different times and worlds,

I Wish I could fly and explore the sky and all its wonders,

Of all the questions,

one stands out.

Who do you want to be?

I want to be someone whose life is overflowing with adventure.

I want to travel and explore.

It would be great to see monuments as bold as stars.

Standing in the middle of the stage

microphone taped to my face

singing my heart out

Handcuffing the mass murder who

has been loose for decades

lowering his head

into the cop car

I am color.

When I score the winning goal in the soccer game,

I am a sparkling yellow that is as bright as the sun!

Sometimes, I have a rough day,

And I feel like a despondent blue that is as dark as the night sky.

Other times,

It’s hard to find who I am.

I know this could take long.

What sets me and others apart?

Where do I choose to stand?

I want answers to appear like the bang of a gong.

Reaching down into my heart,

or searching up above.

When racial slurs are used against you

When people leave you out because of your skin color

When people look at you because of your skin

When you know you’re different

When someone spits at you because of your skin

I hate

being short

the feeling of being left out

how I have to say stuff in front of everyone

answering questions in front of people even though I know it

how I don’t know stuff

I hate

how sometimes,

I’m mean,

Life has been a roller coaster,

it’s had missing tracks,

and breakdowns,

and plenty of bumps,

but I don’t stop.

I don’t stop in the middle of the ride,

even though there might be a downfall.

The first box of society is the family, were born into, the box referred to as home, where we are made and broken. Willingly kept within four lines, that we’ve been conditioned of what boundaries, can and will not be crossed.

I’m hanging from the edge.

Nothing stands between me

and falling but my own waning strength.

What if I fall? What if I seriously hurt myself?

Stop bugging me

Stop discriminating

Stop calling me names

Stop the physical hurt

Stop shoving

Stop picking on me

Stop bringing me down

Stop laughing

Stop the breaking

Stop being a jerk

You could be a picture

Of gleaming perfection.

Indeed, an orchestra,

Of human without sin.

The world at your whims,

Subject to your knees,

Yet you ask nothing of them,

For every person sees,

That you are perfect.

I am an ordinary school girl,

I have homework,

I have assignments,

I have essays,

and I have tests.

Talking with others

feeling so very different

never quite the same

Jokes at my expense

The others laughing so hard

Try and fail to smile

I am but a girl with scars,

Not those that are seen,

The kind buried beneath it all,

I am but a girl with a dream,

Like any other you will see,

I am unique,

But still like any other,

I’ve been thrown,

And hit,

She is faded.

Worn out,

Worn down.

Time stole her crown.

I could spend an eternity upstairs reading.

Under the covers reading, hiding like a bear for winter.

Skimming the pages all day.

In the world of Anne.

Flip, Flip, Flip, Go the pages.

Her always saying Anne spelled with an “e”.

My hope is that we can forget about hate,

our prejudices, our unneeded bias.

There is a little place in my mind…

that is my favorite place…

in the whole world.

It is my creativity.

My imagination.

There I escape to other lands.

To other worlds and kingdoms.

I become anything I like.

The weird stuff in my head,

can confuse thousands,

like a llama driving a car.

The unnatural stuff in my head

is pure nightmare fuel,

pumping through my veins into my brain.

There are so many, too many, humans in the world,

Who are silenced, forgotten, voices never heard.

We make snap judgments based on race,

Appearance, or simply the look of their face.

But each of these people in the world,