Poetry: You Must Tell Your Story

 “Those without power

risk everything to tell their story

and must.

Someone, somewhere

will hear your story and decide to fight,

to live and refuse compromise.”

-Laura Hershey

You must tell your story. 

Tell the story of how the walls 

shook and started caving 

how the window glass shattered

and the ceiling began to shake

how the boys stood up with fists

cocked and pencils, like spears,

and the girls began demanding

to take back their names

You must tell the story

of how the stairs crumbled, 

and how the lights

of a colored spectrum

radiated into the room

You must tell how you ran

to the raging river

because you could barely breathe,

how you found there a sheet

of ice, how the sun made

circles across the sky

illuminating the night

around your eyes, like crescent 

moons-

a cat’s yellow. 

You must speak this story

even when the words

won’t come 

in time.

Tell it -  not for pages and charts - 

but for you, and for another

one lost and on the verge of becoming, 

who is listening and waiting

to hear.