the signs advertising once-prosperous, long-shuttered glass factories and sparkplug plants. You’ll know you’ve arrived when you smell the soybeans cooking hot and earthy like boiling beer.
This town sits amid a triangle of train tracks over which slow-moving, graffiti-tagged boxcars whistle at all hours, a lullaby and an alarm clock. Since the railroad ties were laid, kids who live along them have put pennies on the smoldering silver rails, waiting for the CSX line to flatten them into smooth copper ovals. Ghost stories about headless conductors and ladies in white dresses lingering over country crossings have always been recited, eerie warnings to always look both ways.
For decades, nothing has changed. People have left and died, industry has left and died. And yet nothing has changed.
There is a part of my mind imprinted with the geography of this town—its decaying neighborhoods and abandoned grain elevators. It’s the part that reminds me of where I’m from, and yet exists apart from it, so that I might not stay the same—so that I might shift and change and change and change.
SADE ANDRE
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Junior
HIGH SCHOOL: Millennium Brooklyn High School
BORN: Brooklyn, NY
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: I remember the first time I read my poem to Keciah. I was filled with pressure because I usually don’t share my writings with anyone. I’ve also never written much poetry before meeting her. But while she was reading it her face slowly became filled with joy, and she loved my writing. Since I hold her opinion very dear, knowing that she likes my writing makes me more comfortable with sharing and makes me more willing to write more even if it’s out of my comfort zone.
KECIAH BAILEY
YEARS AS MENTOR: 1
OCCUPATION: Communications Associate, Hebrew Public
BORN: Kingston, Jamaica
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Canarsie Courier
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: I think of Sade as “the lion and the lamb.” At first glance, she is this shy and unassuming teenage girl. Then she writes, and someone fierce, bold, and powerful emerges. She is so strikingly self-aware with a perspective on life that is far beyond her years. While I can never craft a perfectly written poem in twenty minutes (which she does effortlessly), she is exactly who I was in high school. It is truly rewarding to take this journey with her yet offer her a wiser, more evolved version of myself as a mentor and as a writer.
“(F)ear” is about my outlook on how life should be perceived. I know many teenage girls who sometimes take life too seriously. At this age, we should think of life as more of a big picture that is still unfolding, rather than as a micro-moment.
Taught from young that the pit in her stomach, the sweat on her hands, and the pain in her chest will always be there no matter what. The feeling of being lost in a place full of people who already have their opinions and intentions for her. They’ll all hurt and destroy her, adding more things to her demise. Although she’s remained strong through mental, physical, and sexual abuse—she knows that it’s coming.
The strength is dwindling
The light at the end of the tunnel is
No longer twinkling.
For it is pitch black, cold, and she’s numb.
She is sweating and shuddering
Because everything is out of her control.
Yet, inevitably, she endures a breakthrough
And the blue devils become invisible
Like gravity, her infelicity into the galaxy . . .
Taught from experiences, she knows that even though these experiences may be dark, she must go through them. Not because she’s terrible or deserves the worst—but because these hardships, sufferings, are nothing but lessons and experiences. The scars and burns are stories to tell someone who needs it. From this she learned a lesson—maybe even a philosophy—that without fear there would be no function, no motivation to get out of where she is. But we must pull positivity from our experiences because we don’t know our expiration date.
So why live in the darkness and not chase the light? Why take everything while we’re young as such burdens and not lessons? There’s no need to view teenage years as if they are negative times, because this time we have is for lessons. Shaping. To formulate the best versions of ourselves. Generation (F)ear is the generation of hope and strength.
Quite often, it’s the story we tell ourselves about our past and our experiences that keeps us bound. Through my own inward journey, I’ve found that the path to true freedom is to revisit the past, reconcile the good with the bad, then redefine our identities so we can fully embrace the promise of the future. Generation F is Freedom.
I went back into my past and planted a garden there—
The memories were dead and dried.
And all along the fields
Where dreams laid buried,
I gathered up their bones
And prayed them back to life.
In an old shed I found a bucket of tears,
Locked up in frustration and failure.
With it, I watered my garden
Parched with regret and shame,
And sowed seeds of faith,
Where there grew weeds of fear.
Now when I revisit the memories are sweet
Fragrant with life, laughter,
Hope and
