I.

The first day I realized

 

freedom is not free without a cost,

 

I was thirteen—

when we read To Kill a Mockingbird

and I could not help but think

 

the world’s not all that different now.

 

Violence is still the plague—

 

ever-growing

            ever-reaching

                        ever-touching

 

everybody in its path.

 

II.

The first day I learned

 

swimming against the current

now causes you to drown,

 

I was fourteen—

when I watched my best friend

sit down for the pledge—

 

she drowns.

 

I still can’t understand how

anchors became life-rafts—

 

I drown.

 

III.

The first day I became

 

the change I wanted to see in the world,

 

I was fifteen—

I still didn’t know what it would mean.

 

I picked up a pen

and stuttered words onto a page,

watching them take formless breaths—

            they lived.

 

I hoped the people

they were about would too.

 

IV.

The first day I was told

 

women don’t deserve a voice

 

I was sixteen—

when I hit upload on a poem,

screaming

 

women are the renaissance—

 

the rebirth of equality—

 

shot down,

 

I was reeling for days.

 

V.

Every day,

I pressed upload

 

time

            and

                        time

again—

 

One day,

it was the publish button

on my book.

 

I built kingdoms from stones

I caught with my pen—

 

I will always write.

 

When there is nothing left,

I will have my words.

 

And somewhere,

there is a girl in a classroom,

grasping the pages of

To Kill a Mockingbird,

the same thoughts running through her mind—

in her backpack is my book.

 

In her backpack,

there is hope.

 

In her backpack

there’s a voice.

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Referred to this page by emails from PowerPoetry.org