The stage lights were warm on my skin, and the sound from the microphone clipped to my shirt reverberated around the theater. As I recited my lines, I looked out at the crowd. High schoolers are harsh critics, and I was nervous to be in front of so many teenagers I didn’t know. Glancing out, I wondered if any of those students looking back at me were experiencing the same situation I was describing in my poem:
“They don’t know what it’s like to not have a roof over my head, but always have walls built up around me.”
It was September 2023, and I was reading a poem I’d written, “Andy’s Attic,” as part of a playput on by Teen Hype, a youth development program in Detroit. The group’s student organizers curated a performance that explored social issues, and they’d asked me to write and recite a piece about housing insecurity.
As a homeless teenager myself, I was initially concerned that the piece would hit too close to home. My parents had lost the house in January of that same year. I was embarrassed about my still-uncertain housing status. Once I started writing, however, I would find that telling my story through poetry could be emotionally healing…