Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.

If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.

Always remember that
What happened to us
Happened through us.

What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.

Please.
Do not ask us who we are.
The hardest part of grief
Is giving it a name.

To love one another just may be the fight of our lives.

You’re the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.

The good you find in others is a reflection of the good that is in yourself.

You should not judge; you should understand.

Our scars are the brightest parts of us.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust.
For while we have our eyes on the future,
History has its eyes on us.

Goodness can be found sometimes in the middle of hell.

Change is made of choices, & choices are made of character.

Empathy means understanding others on their own terms and bringing them into the orbit of one’s own experience.

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

Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.