To every child
who grew up
on Sesame Street.
To every child who found sanctuary
between the covers of books and
in the embrace of tree branches.
To every child who daydreamed
while making daisy chains at recess.
To every child
who promised themselves,
when they grew up, they'd never
let the underdog stand alone.
To every child who had to endure
what the adults in their lives
didn't have the courage
to confront.
We have survived
what was designed
to smother our light.
Our being alive
in this time
is no accident.
Each of us
are patron saints
of survivance,
who learned to hope
in the dark.
May we light the path.
– – –
Invitation to Play
After engaging with this poem, take a moment to reread it out loud to your child-self. Next, find paper and something to draw with—preferably a crayon, marker, or pencil. Using your non-dominant hand [1], draw a portrait of yourself as a kid who has just listened to this poem. This invitation to play will help you tap into an earlier you who still believes the world can change. It may also remind you that you are an adult now and that the child version of yourself, just like all the young people around you now, have a need for safe adults to intervene, rather than pretend to be helpless in the face of oppression.
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” — James Baldwin [2]
This invitation is inspired by Dr. Lucia Capacchione’s book Recovery of Your Inner Child (Simon & Schuster: Fireside, 1991). ↩︎
This quote comes from James Baldwin’s essay “Notes on the House of Bondage” (The Nation, 1980). His essay and the recent essay, inspired by Baldwin, titled “The Children Are Always Ours,” are worth reading in their entirety. We need to be the safe grownups we wish to see in the world (500 Women Scientists, July 2025). ↩︎
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