Up the Mountain
at first
school was
good
i remember it …
how it was
in pre-school
then kindergarten
1st Grade
2nd Grade
3rd Grade
4th Grade
5th Grade
but around
6th Grade
I noticed
a change
she had held a lot
in
but it would eventually
spill out …
at home
or in the car
or behind closed doors
she was being bullied
because of me
and she didn’t want to tell me
about it
‘cause she knew how much it’d hurt me
like it hurt her
even though she looked white
like her Daddy
the children
had seen me
their parents had seen me
and they all knew from a glance
that she was not just white
like her Daddy
that she was Asian, too
we were not prepared
for how that would
play out
I had even weighed the thought
of home-schooling her through the middle-school years
and when the bullying got really bad
in high school
I asked her several times if she wanted to switch schools
but she had worked so hard
academically
had been eyeing the Valedictorian spot
since grade-school
so she stayed
and kept climbing
despite the hate
and betrayal
‘til she made it happen …
her Valedictorian speech
was amazing
as was her full-ride scholarship
to college
where she is continuing
to crush it
in Chemical Engineering
already the recipient of two academic fellowships
she’ll head to Texas this summer
to intern at a highly competitive company
where she’ll get paid to do what she loves to do
so it won’t be work
and when she comes back in the Fall
she’ll continue tutoring college students
from various majors
who need help with their writing
from a peer who won’t judge them
for it
but will instead
encourage them
and believe in them
‘cause she knows
that Belief
is where it all
begins …
TL