Call Us What We Carry

by Amanda Gorman

We teach children: Leave a mark on the world. What leads a man to shoot up Souls but the desire to mark Up the globe?

Goodbye, by which we say to another— Thanks for offering your life into mine. By Goodbye, we truly mean: Let us be able to say hello again.

Anxiety is a living body, Poised beside us like a shadow. It is the last creature standing, The only beast who loves us Enough to stay.

We might not be fully sure of all that we are. & yet we have endured all that we were.

What we carry means we survive, It is what survives us. We have survived us.

To live only to die is to be doomed but redeemable.

Our invisible battles Are the hardest ones to win.

Hate only survives when hosted in humans.