“Oooh,” says Jenesis. “I like the way you think.”
“Or,” says Freddie, with a twinkle in her eyes, “we could dance around the circle.”
“You mean like this?” Jenesis rises to her feet and throws her hips from side to side, and we all crack up. Even Mr. Ward, who’s supposed to be busy grading papers in the back of the room.
“Y’all laugh all you want,” says Jenesis, “but you know I look good!” She keeps shimmying and shaking in a wide circle, and we laugh so hard, we can hardly breathe.
“One more thing,” says Jenesis. “We need to hit the stores. I’ve got a few coins from babysitting, and I want to buy me something cute for the slam. Plus, we have got to take Miss Li shopping, ’cause I am not getting onstage with her looking like some lost little boy, swimming inside some boring old sweats that are two sizes too big!”
Li blushes, but she smiles a little, too.
“Okay,” she whispers. Angela throws an arm around Li’s waist and gives her a squeeze.
“Well, all right!” says Jenesis. “We gonna have ourselves a good old shopping time!” She and Freddie high-five each other, and the rest of us are all grins.
I suddenly realize, even though I speak two languages, I can’t find a single word that says how much I love the people in this room.
JENESIS
I go straight to my room one night after slam rehearsal, and Karen turns up at my bedroom door.
“You haven’t been around much lately. Not that I care.”
“Aww. You miss me,” I say, dripping sarcasm.
“Hardly,” says Karen, but she’s still taking up space in my doorway. “You’ve probably been getting into some kind of trouble.”
“Right.”
“So? What have you been up to?”
“Rehearsals,” I tell her. Why not?
“Rehearsal for what?”
“A poetry slam.”
“A poetry slam?”
“Is there an echo in here?”
Next thing I know, this girl is bouncing into my room, putting her skinny little butt on my bed. What?
“I went to a poetry slam once. Those things are cool!”
“You. You’ve been to a poetry slam.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oooh-kay.” Not sure I’m buying it, but—whatever. “Well, I’m happy for you. Now, can you please leave? I’ve got homework to do.”
Karen doesn’t move an inch. “Tell me about the slam first,” she says, swinging her legs over the side of my bed.
“What are we, best friends all of a sudden?” The girl doesn’t even blink.
“Just tell me, and I’ll go away.” I can see she means it.
“Fine.”
I take a deep breath and tell her all about Mr. Ward’s class, Open Mike Friday, and Mr. Ward’s idea to do a poetry slam.
“Each team meets for rehearsals at school after hours. So, that’s the story. Now go!”
Karen flinches at the sound of my voice, then finally slides off the bed and takes a step toward the door.
She turns back one last time before leaving.
“So, when is it?” she asks.
“Like I’d tell you! Get. Gone!”
What is with this girl tonight? She has never cared two licks what I do, one way or the other. Now all of a sudden she’s in my face about this poetry slam. Can you imagine Miss Priss sitting through a poetry slam? The idea makes me want to laugh, but I hold it in.
“Good. Night,” I tell Karen. Finally she leaves.
That’s the most conversation we’ve had since I’ve been here. Weird. I wonder if that’s what having a pesky sister would be like. Guess I’ll never know.
Okay. Where’s my notebook for English?
Equation
by Jenesis Whyte
I’ve been trying to solve
the mathematics of sisterhood,
not that I’m part of one,
but why should that keep me
from wondering whether
Sister + Sister = Love, or Crazy?
I can hardly tell
from the silly sitcom world
of distilled kinship dysfunction.
Didn’t I read somewhere
that the happy homemaker
nuclear family
is a myth?
Love is real, though.
And friendship.
I’ve felt the multiplication
of their magic,
the way the love of a friend
can swell the heart.
With each home swap,
I’ve somehow managed
to gather a few friends
to count, and count on,
which makes me think
Friend + Friend + Me
May just be
the best family equation
of all.
At least, it’s one
I get to call
Mine.
DARRIAN
Sometimes, girls make me jealous—the way they push past the stupid stuff that divides them so they can stick together when it counts. Jenesis is right, calling it a kind of magic. Too bad most of us guys can’t figure out that trick.
LATEST TRENDS IN MACHO MALE BONDING
Yeah, that would make the news!
TEAM BOYZ: KYLE
I roll into slam rehearsal just as Mr. Ward is about to announce the free-write theme.
“The poetry slam is coming up fast, and I want you guys to really stretch yourselves. Today’s free-write theme is ‘metamorphosis.’ Now, it may take you a few minutes to come up with a response, but that’s okay. I’ll give you fifteen minutes for this one,” says Mr. Ward.
“Metamorphosis, huh?” says Tyrone.
“Do you need any help?” asks Mr. Ward.
“No,” says Tyrone. “I got this.”
“That makes one of us,” I say under my breath.
“My other classes been keeping me pretty busy lately, but I haven’t lost my touch, Teach.”
“Glad to hear it,” says Mr. Ward. “Oh! Before I forget, I wanted to let you know that I’ve invited a few guest poets to join us at the poetry slam. Team Boyz is a little light, even with Tyrone here, so I’ve asked Wesley Boone and Raul Ramirez to step in. They’re also poets from last year’s Open Mike series. They won’t be collecting points like you, though, but they will help to fill out the program.”
“Cool!” says Tyrone. “Wesley is my homeboy!”
“Okay. Back to the free write,” says Mr. Ward. “Fifteen minutes.”
Two minutes in and my blank page is still staring back at me.
Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis. Instead of opening up my mind, the word is shutting it down. So I think about what it means. Change. Alteration. Transformation. Ah!
Finally, I start to write.
My mother has hated my skateboard since day one. Whenever she looked at it—or me riding it—she imagined disaster. But skateboarding is fun.
Then I got this crazy idea: I’ll teach my mom to skateboard! Why not? I taught Angela, and she’s doing just fine.
So, one day, I offer my mom lessons. She bristles at first, but I keep after her.
“Come on, Mom. Angela took lessons, and she used to be practically afraid of her own shadow.”
“I know, but—”
“Come on. Don’t be a chicken.”
I start making clucking sounds, and that does it.
“Okay. Okay. One lesson,” she agrees.
I teach her the basic stance, show her how to push with one foot on the board, the other on the street. Once she builds up a little speed, I lead her down the block and back. I’m mostly hoping she won’t bail or see the dark side of the board before it’s all over. That’s not exactly what ha
ppens.
She wants to do it again.
“You sure?” I ask her.
“I’m sure,” she says. And you know what she sounds like? Me, when I was a little kid on Christmas, trying out a new toy.
Now my mom wants to go skateboarding. With me. On weekends!
What have I done?
Mom’s even started to look up skate park locations! I tell her to take it slow. Tell her we should stick to street skating. Meanwhile, Dad is laughing his head off, but Mom doesn’t care. She’s into it now.
This is not the monster I was trying to create, but you know what? My mom’s quit looking at my board like it’s a coffin.
Boom! Metamorphosis.
I finish my free write a little ahead of time, so I just lean back in my chair and close my eyes. Pictures of my mom on a skateboard roll through my mind, and I just sit there, grinning.
Butterfly
by Kyle
You see them
flying around each summer,
delicate wings flashing
bits of rainbow color
as they flit
here, there, and everywhere.
I know. I know. We guys
tend to see butterflies
as girly, but think about
what they’ve been through.
They start off as wormlike
caterpillars courageously dodging
fast-footed boys
determined to shorten
their life span.
The few who make it
go through alteration,
transformation,
metamorphosis,
change, which is
the hardest thing of all.
Even the word change
is tough enough
to leave me bloody.
I don’t know about you,
but I don’t like to change
my shirts, my sheets, my mind
unless I’m forced to.
So what could be more macho
than a caterpillar voluntarily
entering a cocoon
with no notion of what he’ll be
when he comes out?
If you ask me,
metamorphosis is
pretty badass.
DARRIAN
If you told me “badass” and “macho” were gonna come out of that skinny little gringo’s mouth, I’d have called you a liar. But Kyle is full of all kinds of surprises. Good ones, though. Forget the book cover. You’ve got to look inside.
TRUTH PLAYS HIDE-AND-SEEK
TEAM BOYZ: MARCEL
We’re almost ready for the poetry slam, but not quite.
“Okay, y’all,” Tyrone says at our last rehearsal. “We gots to get our group poem down. You feel me?”
We all nod.
Darrian turns to Tyrone. “You got a theme in mind, ése?”
“Not really,” says Tyrone.
I got an idea, but I want to hear what somebody else is gonna come up with. A few minutes pass, and all I hear is a lot of nothin’. I’m about to speak when Mr. Ward steps in.
“How about loss, or losing?” says Mr. Ward.
“Naw, Teach,” says Tyrone. “Don’t nobody want to think about losing.”
“I know,” says Mr. Ward, “but in reality, everyone loses something, or someone, at some point in life. It’s a great universal subject. Just give it a chance, see where it takes you.”
The whole time he’s talking, I’m thinking, Hell no.
Sure, I know about loss. Lost my friends when we had to move from our old apartment after Pops went to jail, ’cause felons can’t live in Section 8 housing. The only way we could’ve stayed was if Moms and Pops got divorced, and Moms wouldn’t. Lost having Moms around as much ’cause she had to take a second job to pay for food and a new place with no help from Uncle Sam. Lost the Pops I used to know. And justice. I used to think it was something everybody was guaranteed, but that idea got knocked out of me good. Guess I should count that as a loss, too.
Yeah, I know about loss, but I sure as hell don’t want to write about it. I’ve already done that plenty. Besides, it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, now that I’ve learned to let it out, to put it into poetry. Now I want to write about something else. Something better.
“Hope,” I say out loud.
“What was that?” asks Mr. Ward.
“We need an idea for a group poem? Let’s write about hope.”
What was it that Freddie said? Use your energy to hang on to hope.
I look around at Tyrone, Kyle, Darrian, then back at Mr. Ward.
“You say we should write about loss. Well, you lose hope, what else is there?”
Mr. Ward flashes me one of his secret smiles, like I just made his day.
“I like that,” he says. “Okay, gentlemen. ‘Hope.’ That’s our new subject. You’ve got fifteen minutes to do your free write. Go!”
Darrian gives me a nod, and we all get down to business.
Hope
by Tyrone Bittings
Kyle Newton
Marcel Dixon
Darrian Lopez
High expectation
is not exactly a station
near the subway stop
where I live,
so let me give you
some advice:
If you hope to hope
for more than a minute,
you better be prepared
to put your whole heart in it.
First up,
you gotta believe, ’cause
desire accompanied by expectation
requires confidence,
confidentially speaking.
Hope is for the strong,
not for the weak, yo.
And I would know.
The heart can be a fragile thing,
but we forget.
It’s hidden so deep
inside the chest,
the beats are imperceptible, unless
fear, anxiety, exertion
make the heart race,
thunder violently against
the rib cage,
a rage of blood bringing it
to a full stop, or skip,
leaving us in that netherworld
halfway between life and death,
the end of breath,
if only for a second.
I’m a seasoned traveler
to that distant place,
my heart a fragile passenger
riding on the will
to be here
one more day,
to hope for one more
tomorrow.
Confidentially speaking,
hope is for the strong,
not for the weak, yo.
And I would know.
Hope is the nightstick I swing
to bludgeon memories of a past
that would blast my future
if I let it.
Hope is the power
poetry has given me
to channel the righteous rage
that would otherwise
rip me apart.
Hope heals my hurt, my heart,
leaves me room to breathe,
gives me the mustard seed
of faith I need
to press on, to offer
something worthwhile
to my family, my girl,
the world.
Confidentially speaking,
hope is for the strong,
not for the weak, yo.
And I would know.
Ever since cancer carried
mi madre from this world,
hope has been the headline
of my life,
the story that’s always
the news we need,
the inspirational tale
I want to tell, report, repeat
on the front page of the daily news,
or, to be more precise,
the New York Times
I plan to be on,
in the future I hope for
and help to create
every time I spin
a hot headline
for the high school paper.
Time may not heal all wounds,
but hope takes the edge off
of heartache.
Confidentially speaking,
hope is for the strong,
not for the weak, yo.
And I would know.
We stand here,
sturdy in our truth,
a band of badass youth
ready to take on tomorrow,
armed to the teeth
with holsters full of hope.
Confidentially speaking,
hope is for the strong,
not for the weak, yo.
And we? We know.
VAL
The slam is a week away, and everybody is getting a little antsy, especially the boys, who keep trash-talking about how they’re going to dominate. For sure, they’re going to be the loudest!
We’re all excited. There are flyers posted all over the school! Lots of kids have told me they’re planning on coming. I’m glad, but a little nervous, too.
I can’t wait to meet Raul Ramirez. I hear he’s pretty cute. Not that I’m looking for a boyfriend, but it never hurts to have a cute boy around.
Yesterday, the girls’ slam practice ran a little late. We worked on our group poem, and it took forever to nail down the timing. It didn’t help that I kept forgetting my lines. I’ve never had to memorize this much stuff before, but I can’t perform the piece right if I don’t get off book and know every word by heart. I’m not worried, though. That’s what I keep telling myself. Maybe by tomorrow, I’ll actually believe it.
I look around this classroom, study everybody in it: Tyrone, Jenesis, Freddie, Kyle, Li, Darrian, Marcel, and all the others. We live in the same city, go to the same school, but each of us has a different story. What we have in common is trying to figure out how to tell it. So why am I going crazy, shaving off pieces of myself, trying to fit in? Nobody fits in. We’re all separate pieces, stitched together with words and friendship mostly, and somehow, it works. Maybe that’s what being American is about—being different, standing out, but standing together.