RISING UP
“There once was a girl who learned
to outrun her fears.
And he? He outran the myths he told himself about being stuck;
chilled out the hot shame of feeling stupid.
They are rising up.
And any luck you get? You gotta work really, really hard for it.
Cause we’re all made of our actions and choices and chances.
Everybody deserves a chance, right?
We are rising up.
Every game has a narrative. Like a play you read in class.
She glides down court, defender at her hip all the way to the rim.
She fakes, she leaps, and then the defender
Is just a disturbance the air behind her as she flies. She can fly.
She is rising up.
High school is not a pickup game; It’s the playoffs, man.
You better go hard or you better go home. Get serious.
You want to play Boston Latin you better beat algebra first.
Remember thinking it wasn’t cool to be smart? That wasn’t smart.
We are rising up.
Sometimes this year, you find yourself outside of yourself,
Looking at this person who is you, studying, going to practice, going to a job.
And the story is going so well, you want to skip ahead to the end of the book
But you can’t so you write the pages of life every day as fast as you can.
Your story.
Your life.
Your rise.
You are rising up.