To My Seniors-Yearbook Version

To those faces, familiar and silent, we've made it.
To those stuffed on buses, and packed on trains, to those who bike, and those few who drive: we've made it.
To those whose throats hurt like mine, and even to those whose don't, congratulations, we've made it.
We've made it through Security telling us to put our ID's on, and petty fights, and Friday fight nights, through "ONE FIVES", and "SIXES", and "SEVENS", and now we're onto "EIGHTS", through fire drills, and lockdowns, and plenty of bad grades.
We've made it through three years, and we're off onto our fourth.
We've waited, and we've waited, and finally we are here. We've worn our togas and yelled our year, and more is yet to come, yet soon we will be baffled by how quickly our time is done. So before this becomes too gushy, before I can speak again, before our graduation, and before this time ends, let me say to friends and strangers, I'm glad I've spent this time with you, and sad that it has not been enough.
I'll miss your smiles,
your drama,
your music,
I'll miss your sneers,
your obnoxious texting in the halls,
your blocking O,
and showing up to class late,
I'll miss your voices,
your backpacks,
your cutting in lines,
your and my conflicting views,
your recommendations,
your small talk,
your invites, and lack thereof,
I'll miss your polls on Facebook,
your taking up the halls,
your incessant Snapchats, and your unitards on spirit days,
I'll miss this all, and so much more, but mostly I'll miss us.
I'll miss us all as one, one class, one group, one voice, one sound, one thousand and yet one.

I'll miss each and every one of you and damn it I'll miss Lane.

A friend, a face, or something else,


Sam Rodriguez

Untitled

I really ought to be doing homework, or dishes, working on college applications, or doing laundry. I can't. I can't sit here guiltily, working on meaningless things as my mother thinks or feels that I am not grateful, not thankful, not totally in debt, to a woman who has made me a possibility.

Untitled:

I really ought to stop typing, ought to work, ought to stop. I cannot.


She sits she speaks she's made me me.
She's glorious, has worked for free,
Solely to see me be.

To push and prod to pray for me,
To one day see me free.

I am wholly grateful,
Wholly burned to hear that "I am hurt"
or that I have lacked the words,
to demonstrate the clarity
With which it must be heard,

I am thankful, so thank you,
and lest I sound absurd,
let me say I love you endlessly
To be sure it's heard

-A hard-headed son