By: Lydia B.

In my classroom, school started promptly at zero eight hundred, a guard stood at the door, and another sat in the classroom. I was intentionally and exaggeratingly positive in my interactions with my incarcerated students. I did this because I knew they struggled with their mental health and needed positive and healthy interactions with adults. Most if not all my students came from hard-working minority families and they didn’t seek mental health support; they often mocked mental health support. I understood where that came from, but continued to be that positive influence and “listening chair” for them during my time as a teacher. I loved writing this poem and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it.

Honorable Mention · Adult Writing (2024)

Those wild chairs! 

and their constant affairs:

The skinny chair is boney 

The solid chair is bold 

The tiny chair is squeaky 

And the metal chair is cold

A classroom full of chairs 

Tears, fears, and cheers

“Trust me, no one cares.” 

The metal chair jeers.

I’ve listened and I’ve cheered, 

Through the chuckles and the tears. 

I’ve worried and I’ve feared,
As each one disappears.

What happened to those chairs? 

They needed someone there! 

Someone who cared just enough 

To be their listening chair.