Graduating from an almost all white school:
Four years an athlete,
Three years of good grades.
Two years a walking target for
Trump boys and jealous girls.
Two years of COVID.
One year of your hometown burning down.
Three deaths of people close to her.
Four years of trauma’s memory.
Six months of a brand new predator.
Extracurriculars include:
Working while the privileged vacationed,
human rights projects outside of school,
working out demons,
mentoring other brown girls
about to be next.
It’s a heavy schedule this mourning,
this world of grief.
Write a prize-winning scholarship
essay about that.
Baby girl lived in her own skin
and in and out of other people’s
stereotypes and expectations
and somehow,
somehow—
she’s still alive.
Throwing Chanclas 