Sarah Kay

Yeah.

And so I came back the next week as a 14-year-old and I was like, hello, I'm here for the poetry.

And they were like, okay, sit over there and don't order any alcohol.

And my parents...

were a little baffled because again they're not writers and they're not performers but they were like okay this is a thing she seems excited about we're not going to let her go by herself but we will go and sit on the other side of the room to not cramp her style and that is where I went to see poetry and I kept coming back and so I spent all four years of high school

going to this dive bar and watching poets perform, mainly poets who were at least a decade my senior.

But it meant that sometimes when I'm feeling cheeky, I say, I didn't fall in love with poetry in a book.

I fell in love with poetry in a dive bar, which is true.

And it also meant that I learned poetry almost in an apprenticeship form.

So by watching what was possible and seeing all these different styles and people who either lived in New York or were coming through New York, I got to experience such a wide range of what was possible in poetry.

And

I got the unbelievable gift of a room full of adults making room for me and my poetry and taking it seriously and taking me seriously, which became the thing that I wanted to share with everybody else.

Instead of mom, she's going to call me point B. Because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me.

And I'm going to paint the solar systems on the backs of her hands.

So she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, oh, I know that like the back of my hand.

And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach.

But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming, I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself, because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal.

Believe me, I've tried.

And baby, I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that.