“We Made It” By Demontea

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This is an original work of poetry submitted to Children’s Rights by foster care alum, Demontea Thompson, for our Fostering the Future campaign. Learn more about #FosterMyEducation here.

Out in the cold for so long
The sirens became your bed songs
Virus, became your loved ones
And your lungs filled with lies
From the system that promised you family

Your color blended with night
The only friend you saw by your side –
Was your shadow,
And it gave you strength to fight

And you’re resilient in nature,
so you bent like light, until you could bend no more
your stomach taught you to steal from grocery stores
and your eyes deceived you with folklores

Stories about what you can and can’t do
Filled the tiny rooms in your head,
Contradicting what God thinks of you

Your life is still worth living
Although, it took you so long to find your village,
Your voyage should be lauded,
You crawled and you ate every goal you set

The best thing that happened to you was your school
It was solace – a place called home
Now the alarms that wake up your dreams are your new songs
no machine in this word is built like you

You walked on the stage
in the final days
with love in the audience,
Your GPA screams, “F*** the establishment
We made it!!!”

Published on May 4, 2017 as part of Children’s Rights’ “Fostering the Future” campaign. The opinions expressed herein are those of the blog author and do not necessarily represent the views of Children’s Rights or its employees. Children’s Rights has not verified the author’s account.