One day a student told me there was no way I could feel them.
There was no way I’d relate.
I took this as them thinking there was no way I could heal them.
There was no way we’d equate.
So I asked them “in what way?”
They told me I had no idea what it’s like to be poor.
They told me I would never know what’s hood.
They told me I would never know what’s hardcore.
They told me no one ever understood.
So I asked them “in what way?”
They told me no one understood the struggle.
They told me no one understood their pain.
They told me in a way that wasn’t subtle,
that all us teacher people were the same.
So I asked them “in what way?”
The student soon grew weary of my questioning.
They started asking questions of their own.
They even asked me if I was arresting them.
I said: “my classroom’s not a jail, it is a home.”
And I explained…
I grew up with the poorest of the poor,
where you don’t expect to see another day.
‘Cause I was born into an ugly “civil war,”
in a third-world country far away,
where eating beans and rice was a commodity,
only if you had the means to get paid.
Getting where I got makes me an oddity.
I too, have faced some of these hardcore stakes.
My parents left me when I was a baby.
I had to flee my home when I was six.
There are those who’ve lived the struggle daily;
who have broken and are now ready to fix.
I’m not your king. I don’t expect you to follow me.
You just don’t need to question how far I have delved.
‘Cause when I come into this classroom I bring all of me;
the one who feels you and the one who wants to help.
THEN my student asked, “in what way?”
