Gabby's Poem: Home Sweet Home

We gather for family discussions in our living room

We lay our hearts out across the sofa

But the adults change the channel on  the child’s perspective

Home sweet Home

There’s always someone who can spread a lighter mood

Butter you up with hugs and kisses

To nourish your heart and spirit

Home sweet home

Shouting and screaming cuss words at us when my mom is upset

Like a bad stomach

So hurt on the inside we lose control on our exterior

Home sweet home

It prepares a map that shall lead me to greatness

My home has made  My mind a gps

I am able to redirect myself

Into the right direction

When mistakes come my way

Home Sweet home

A perfect home is what you consider perfect

Throughout very inconsolable moments where we weren't able to let go of hurt

To moments where we never want to leave each other sides

Cause thatś what love does to a person

Home sweet home

Braun's Poem: Memories

As I walk through the doorway I get hit with the smell of a clean carpet and warmth. 

As I take a few more steps I look at my surroundings. 

The middle of the room is empty, 

so empty that I feel I could fall to the ground and fall on a soft plush carpet. 

As I look around I remember when my baby brother first slept in here, 

or when I made a fort out of pillows and blankets. 

But I find myself looking up at the eighteen foot ceiling

thinking about the time I got my first bunk bed and when I redid my room, 

How excited I was to have a place to call home.

Jenna's Poem: Untitled

I remember the day the whole city was red,

The Alcohol was heavy, the cars were beepin’

When the puck went to Saad, to Richards then to Kane,

Then straight to the back of the net.

The horns went roaring and the gloves went soaring,

The TV screaming “3 times, 6 years”

The South Siders who were sure the Cubs would lose said,

“Congrats that was well deserved”.

Tears were falling on the streets that my mom's father once said

“Honey, they’re never gonna win” but she stayed optimistic and within decades he got the phone call “look, they finally won”.

It had just turned 2017 when my dad got the call from his boss.

The first shot just hours after 12:00 AM.

A gun that was dark as the mind of the shooter.

“It’s Chicago, what do you expect?”

My dad walked out and slammed the door.

Those words hurt, as a bullet shot through me.

I asked if Chicago was really dangerous.

The next day, it was as almost as Wrigley Field heard my command.

We were almost victorious

The scent of alcohol was heavy,

The cars were beepin’

People were cheerin’

And after 108 years I finally heard

“The Cubs are World Series Champs!”

The streets weren’t filled with cars, ambulances, and police,

But with Chicagoans from all generations.

Malayjah's The court? My home!

The court? My home!

We dreaded to practice yet leaped for games

Home of the cougars we were proud to be

From walking through yall ghetto halls to sweating down your raggedy  gyms

Badgers were no match for cougars

Your games bored me

Sorry! get clue… who’s the best? Guess who

Yea we knew we were stars GOO COUGARS we screamed it loud

Till our end season

We were devastated to leave

The place we called home, We watched each other grow

We were a family

We've now drifted apart years gone past haven't even stepped on a court together

But hey once a cougar always a cougar…

Right?

Daijah's Poem: Untitled

I dwell in the home inside me

Enlightened by my soul

The pain that’s hidden in my closet

May spook and crush my body

The emotions to the past are simmering

But Iḿ trying to brew the boiling water inside of me

I dwell in my home when i close my eyes

and dream about what i want in life

just memory's from the foam

I dwell in my home when i forget about

The reality and just zone out for a minute

I dwell in my home when i forget

About The bad in life and focus on the  

good

                                             

When i'm with my family and when i'm with       

my friends I dwell in my home because I'm

able to be myself Or i’m chilling with the nurses and playing bingo on tuesdays they make me feel at home Or even when i'm playing the piano      

and singing like i'm at  a concert with four extra   

little hands banging on the piano

Either way i don't have to be at home to be  

at home because home   

makes me who i am and

It dwells in a place inside of me

Nigel: A World in a Box

I was born in Chi-Raq

I defeated Mario and Luigi

I ran the speed of light till the ball reach the net

No water for a decade

But I drink from the lake of motivation

I am strong

I sit on the mountain peak slaying Godzilla with my dull sword and keen senses

I live with the wild Avatars

Roaming the skyscrapers through the Luminous night

My Superior qualities help me give correct directions

like the internet and the GPS

I am a warrior

I've mastered the great grueling games

for the Earth praises

Cuz I'm the players and the fans

I taught Picasso how to sketch

I created agriculture and you're just riding my rollercoaster

The world revolves around me

I caused the sands of time to pass

As I built the great wall of China, my small achievement

I am genius

I mean...I’m...impractical

Like the universe

Jayden: Home Sweet Court

Home sweet Court

The moment I hear the ball echoing as it's bounced on the hard gym floor

The electricity running through me, shocking the crowd with my moves

I know this is where I belong

Miss, Make, Brick, Foul, Success and Failure

The tension builds up like skyscrapers  

Time runs thin like paper

Shoes start squeaking like street mice

Crowd screaming, electricity streaming, buzzer beeping

Win or lose, my back reads 21

 The court I play upon, I claim my home

Untitled by Sidney Justus

My home isn’t a tipi,

We don’t wear animal skins on our backs,

And we don’t run after the wild fauna of Africa with spears and sticks,

Our streets are tainted in red dirt and fresh rare rain on early mornings just like the color of your pavement covered in your own brother's blood

My family wasn’t blessed with the ill-fated curse of a serious illness that butchered through the homes of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea like the angel of death butchered through the homes of first borns to the northeast miles away,

But you didn’t know that,

To you, all places in Africa are the same,

But you don’t know my country like I do.

It’s where the house smells like pounded yam and egusi soup,

Bodies smell like fresh dudu osun,

And the road smells like leather sandals.

Once a week, people from different homes up the street stand stiff & steady,

Waiting to be seated for early church service,

The very building where we are taught to pray for good health,

Because our own country can’t provide us good health care,

Where we are taught to pray for our brothers, fathers and sons,

Who are constantly cheated out of their own money by their own government.

Home is where my grandmother's mouth lays,

Where noises form to words, formed into sickly sweet sentences that made you feel better when you were troubled,

Or when she calls you Olaedo

Gold,

Home is where your ears were filled with the composition music of the crickets,

While Grandpa’s dog blackie barking and the wind screaming back every night,

Home is where people fought over the best fish, best lamb, and the best goat at the open market,

Home is where sentences are mixed in perfect harmony between native and english tongue,

My home is where my heart is,

My home is Nigeria.