Prologue
walk walk walk walk walk
walk walk walk walk walk
walk walk walk walk walk
stops
look look
look look look
walk walk walk walk walk
walk walk walk walk walk
walk walk walk walk walk
stops
look look
look look
walk walk walk walk walk
walkwalkwalkwalk
stops
turn glare stare go.
stays.
.
Monday Morning
Daddy grumbled under tongue
thudded through shadowed spaces
clotting to coffee and
steel toed towards the door
faced Flint.
He beat the sun.
Upstairs
Softness
whimpers
of bad dreams:
Deirdra finger combs little Felix’s hair
to lull his sleep,
hums Grandma’s honey tune
four siblings nestled on underdressed mattresses.
Mama clanking
in the bathroom sink.
Yellowed teeth bag lady in
Maskara to face her
Three shifts.
The sons up
The daughters showered
The parents gone
Deirdra makes lunches
In polyester pants
Hurries to school
Tardy.
Tardy.
Tardy.
Detention
“Do you want to be here?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you want a diploma?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be on time.”
“I‘m in ch—”
“Listen. This is your life. If it matters to you then work for it. We
Choose our destinies, Deirdra. A diploma can
Take you anywhere you want to go. What do you
Want to be when you
Grow up? A teacher? A nurse?
A wonderful wife or mother?”
…
“To be happy.”
“Then be happy, dammit.”
…
“Yes, sir.”
Felix waits outside the double doors
“If it matters to you then work for it.”
Coated in Deirdra’s windbreaker
From the last stormy season.
“You’re right,
Sir.”
“Detention.”
The Parchment
They have it
but They didn’t
have
to respond
to a sobbing ball of baby
paper bags of Oreos and Doritos
the disappearing parent.
to wake up
give five innocenter minds
what they need to
Get out.
They only have Themselves.
Noon is lunchtime in the cafetorium
but Deirdra visits Mr. Daniel’s to
nurse herself as
U grads in the corner
Indulge in talking about
Choice.
To
Work harder
Try harder
Schmooze harder
booze harder
“I don’t feel bad for anyone who doesn’t try.
If you focus on the negative, you’re gonna be miserable.
Like, find the light.”
a candle next to the bowl of peanuts.
extinguished by a sneeze.
“I mean, if you want a different life,
Mama still wears maskara
Go out and make it happen for yourself.
Daddy died
You don’t have to be stuck.
Felix has uncombed hair
It’s just ridiculous.”
Deirdra wants to be happy.
~Illusive Requirements, by Abby V
“Illusive Requirements” stemmed out of a class discussion in an English course a few weeks ago. We were discussing the book Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line by Ben Hamper, a memoir about growing up in Flint, Michigan and working on the GM assembly line. Through our discussion, one classmate kept asserting that she did not feel bad for the workers at GM. “If you want more, go out and get it. If it matters to you then work for it,” she continually stated. I became overwhelmingly frustrated that she couldn’t see the plausibility of people in this world not having that motivation, ability, or circumstances to go out and make one, some, any, or all of their aspirations a reality. Her background and upbringing haven’t allowed her to see people on the other side. So, in my narrative poem, I aimed to create a story on that other side.
You Will Rise Project 
These are amazing poems, with incredible sensitivity to so much in the world.Thank you.