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.