A drawing of a superhero
Done by a fourth grader
Who’s father died in a fire.
He’s standing ten feet tall
With the wind blowing in his hair,
He’s got so many friends
And feels no despair.
All the happy people
They say they love him
And there’s nothing he can do
But just keep going.
But teacher asks a question
And he doesn’t know,
So all the children laugh
At the broken Superhero

i.
I once knew a girl who wore jeans with ripped holes
not a cape, but scraped knees
she didn’t believe in smoke signals, instead
wrote in the margins of the paper but
each time I wanted to drown,
she taught me how to swim.

ii.
She slouched when she walked and
had mousy brown hair without
pearly white teeth or a figure 8 but
when she smiled, my God,
was she beautiful.

iii.
My mother always told me that when I grow up,
I could be whatever I wanted. When I told her
I wanted to be Wonderwoman, she laughed and said,
“someone is already Wonderwoman,” I didn’t know
that someone was you.

iv.
The next time someone pulls your hair or
calls you names, remember that there’s only one you
who knows how to save my world.