He stands in one corner of a cell
in Juvenile Hall they call them rooms
not cages
guards are called counselors
not correctional officers
and you might hear words like rehabilitation
even though discipline is rule of thumb

There is nowhere to run
no way to escape demons of self-doubt
or reason with adolescent fears, seething
no mirrors to face, just corners blank
as stares from past self
this is how we “help”
some of the most traumatized children in this nation

Tears run, blood runs
but bodies rarely run
except in secret
he’ll sprints through space-time, close his eyes
he ditches dull beige, becomes cocooned in the full color spectrum
outside, where children play
he once prayed
for an end to agony
he’d skip school or pop pills to escape
greeted some mornings by the sting of a broken rib, bellyache
he was taught evil lurks is in the next room
he was taught borders are a certain kind of surgery

If he had superpowers
he’d move through concrete walls
his body composed of pure cunning
not flesh, not bone
right now he is alone
the truth is he feels safe
off chaotic streets, roof over his head, food, structure
this process is called institutionalization
the institution is no place for empathy
this is where he learns to be hard
to swallow solitude, to never crack a smile

Enter yours truly: the Teaching Artist
I visit all of the units each Friday
I share the poetic process as necessity
I ask kids to go there, to write
and they run with it, accessing ancestral magic
their pencils dance across blank pages
his restless becomes poem, becomes tangible
he makes me laugh often
he oozes of style, innovation

My incarcerated students trace their roots to the Fillmore,
the Tenderloin, Mission, HuntersPoint, Potrero Hill—
the hoods the city keeps secret from its picturesque skyline
San Francisco’s not-so-subtle systemic injustice
feels like phlegm in this Abolitionist’s throat
I’m trying to speak but I’m choking up

In a separate class,
one girl’s stomach growls, its emptiness loud as an eviction notice
when someone says she’s too sensitive
she turns herself inside out in verse
this poem is where she stores daddy issues
tumors crowding the crevasses of her ribcage
this simile is where she cries, afraid to bear children behind bars
this is where she whispers beneath her breath
a million prayers for each being locked inside the system

And after work
I run

I push buttons and go through five doors to get back out again
I breathe fresh, free air
I never turn around once I pass the corner
if I did, I’d see my enemy looming in the distance
a grey façade of grandiose
a barbed-wire giant
a stain on our psyches
this beast, the P.I.C., its wrath is a coroner’s report
I’ve heard lost hope hover on a boy’s breath
as he associates his existence with his conviction
I’m convinced there are other solutions, proven
still, our state outsources kids to group homes
and they run
we force kids to attend failing schools
and they run
we rarely invest in their innate creativity
they run
and when a child kills another child
we forget to mourn both children
the lethal violence of sentences dubbing survivors damaged
folks ask me,“ how do you manage?”

I say, “I’ve been in my feelings lately”
been tripping over triggers
I’m tethered to the way kids look up at me as I’m speaking
seeking, in my pupils, similar sorrows
they swim towards each class period
a guard handcuffs a kid
the facts tug of war with my intestines
don’t get used to this
I tell myself
don’t get used to concrete and doors
doors heavy as they slam shut

I feel myself getting closer yet farther from the source
of our collective suffering
I want to disrupt the cycle of violence
I want to laugh often
the sound is a spellbound echo
in the cavernous of my memory

California still spends six times more
to incarcerate youth than to educate them
yet, statistics have become a dull sting of antiseptic to the jaw line
pulling teeth to get anyone to pay attention

She stands in one corner of her cell
in Juvenile Hall they call them rooms
not cages
guards are called counselors
not correctional officers
and you might hear words like rehabilitation
even though discipline is rule of thumb
is there nowhere to run?

My students are unique genetic fingerprints
they trace themselves across galaxies
she used to paint her lips midnight
she shit talks the Grim Reaper into a pile of shadows
she smells Sunday dinner cooking on the stove
her face becomes warm as her abuela’s embrace
she watches her stories come to life on the page
the ceremony of letters, litanies, is like locking eyes with her first love

She’ll expand
like the tracks of the BART train as it weaves through the region
like the rap bars boys in the Bayview bust into dark closet booths
he’ll expand
like longing, like the itch to get out and back into something real, tangible
like the way our people dance through nightmares,
exquisite with our schemes, always eluding the oppressors sick dream
no sentence can untangle the intricate webs of warrior tactics
we’ve spun

so
please,
don’t ever believe,
for one second,
that there is nowhere to run