Liberation looks like teenagers mapping their voices in 10 minutes of silence
Liberation is being free from the day’s struggles and tying them down to paper
I’ve seen liberation happen
Ink flowing on paper like they were flowing blood from their fingertips

If you’re so angry
Write a poem
If you’ve ever been cheated out
Write a poem
If you’ve ever been lied to without the courtesy of it being done behind your back
Write a poem
Write every gut wrenching, self-deprecating, thought on paper
Perform self-surgery to remove the weight of world from the bones in your shoulders

By writing a poem

If they’ve never understood what is was like to go to school every day lacking self-worth
If they’ve never understood what it was like to go to school
Where adults didn’t trust you, officers looked down on you
“Get to class” – My only purpose in life was to get to class
“Sorry teacher.  I didn’t do my homework because being at home was too much work already.”
Then write a poem

For the broken desks and spirits
Crumbling ceilings and facades
Holes in the floor and education system
That our school forgets to brag about
Write a poem.

To correct every materialistic, tech savvy, online, suit and tie, next big thing,
Kind of ******* lie our school feeds us
Liberate yourself by writing a poem

For the principal that has no idea what happens in the classroom
Liberate him
For the students who don't know what doesn’t happen with administration
Liberate them

Write a poem
Because if you fail, then will anybody notice
Your silent shouts knocking on deaf ears




Write a (love) poem
About how this school became your four year long affair
Five days a week. Even though you had your battles
You’re going to miss this kind of relationship when it’s gone
Liberate this kind of community

Write a poem for the soles of the feet of boys and girls
Who dance on broken bottles
Copper glass shards
Exoskeletons of alcoholics
Scattered in a playground like tombstones in a graveyard
Write a poem for the broken bottles your community got used to
Liberate your community

If you’ve ever been inspired here then write a poem
To inspire others to loosen the wrinkles in the joints in their fingers
Crinkle out the cracks in their wrist
Get those palms to tell their own stories

Write a poem
That will make them raise their arms and shake
Chains of oppression off their lungs to get them o
Breathe
Liberate them

Write a poem that would make the roots of you ancestry shake their leaves
Liberate your roots

Liberate yourself – make them listen
Liberate them – make yourself listen

Liberate the 9th grade wannabe’s, drop out clichés, teenage mothers,
Clueless administrators, kids feeling tied down to Tucson,
Teachers lacking faith in change
Boys and girls thinking they are forever
Silenced
Liberate those you are forever
Silent

Liberate yourself
Write a poem