Grades 9–12
PoetryWritingOlivia H. is from Chicago, Illinois. As a member of the 826CHI’s Teen Writers Studio, her piece “Stars” was first published in 826CHI’s I Will Hold You Like a Bible. You can read more about the project here.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the stars
Bright lights in the darkest of nights
As if black ink were spilled across the sky
When I look at the stars, I’m reminded of a quote I like,
“The dance between darkness and light will always remain—
the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen,
the darkness will just not be worth having without the moon and the stars”
Words, like stars, are immortal
And when I look at the stars
I hear the stories of those who came before me
Decades and generations between us
But they used the stars just like I do,
For comfort,
and relief,
and as a reminder that I have a guide even when it feels like I’ve lost the map
If I had lived 200 years ago,
I would have looked at the stars and seen a roadmap to freedom
My skin dark like the night,
leaves under my feet
wind lashing against my cheek
Running
Always running
Because even now
Freedom is an illusion for many more than it is a reality
And life is a race in which you see how long you can run before you are
stopped in you tracks,
Because a boy in your city was shot 16 times
and each shot rang out in your ears like the 16 years you had lived
because you were in fact almost 16 when you finally saw the footage
And still, no justice
What do you want me to do
When I live my life in fear
Not even for myself
But for my brothers and sisters in the world who aren’t as lucky as me
My head spins
and I think
and I think
and I think
I think about what you see when you see my father
a black man living in America
because after one too many times I can’t keep telling myself that random
selection at the airport is really all that random
I can’t keep telling myself that everything is ok
because it’s not
But from darkness comes light
Like shimmering stars emerging from a hazy dusk
And I am strong
and vulnerable
and angry
and proud
I’m Olivia to the world
and ladybug to my mom
I’m young,
and full of wishes that I still whisper into the night when a star makes
its way across the sky
I want change
I don’t want to worry about my dad
or my friends
or my neighbors
I don’t want my daughter to ever feel like brown skin isn’t beautiful
I don’t want to live in a world where a color can be a crime
So I take these wishes
and hopes
and prayers
And I write them on my mirror in lipstick
And the red stained glass reminds me of a past in which blood dripped
from black fingers onto white cotton
But at the same time
I think of the blood coursing through my veins
And I think about how we are all the same on the inside,
blood and bones and a beating heart
And I place my hand over my chest,
and I feel it beat once
and twice
and again and again
And once again, I’m thinking
Thinking about how beat has four letters just like l-o-v-e and f-e-a-r and
h-o-p-e and s-t-a-r
Star
And I smile, and apply that lipstick,
red like the fire igniting within me,
and I sit down at my desk to gaze outside my window
Four stars always shine the brightest,
and each one gets a letter in the way you might have guessed
S-t-a-r, I whisper into the dark,
until a fifth one catches my eye and I’m awarded an extra letter
And I’m compelled to spell a new word,
one that’s written in the stars and written in night
B-l-a-c-k
Black.
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