“From my mind to my heart: a message to me,” by Zhushen Zhang
March 12, 2018
From my mind to my heart: a message to me
One of those late night conversations and
I found me
The real me
Age eighteen
I understand now
Took the time to look back
And I thought
Wow
Childhood
It was a lock down
Locked between the people who gave
birth to me
Defined as
Parents
Society called it
Family
Disagreeing I thought it was more of a
Dysfunctionality
No mom with only a dad figure
I needed to be at least grateful for having a
Father and a mother
The smallest things they did
Do matter
Senior year in high school
I looked back
Every disconnection
Became a reflection
I saw me and I finally understood everything
February fourteenth
Two thousand eighteen
The day of valentines
Became the beginning of
The real me
My mind was ten years ahead
My heart was one year behind
But now I’m all caught up
Throwing all the
Negative thoughts to the side
It was all positivity on my mind
No one was going to stop me
No
I don’t have the time
Friends is family
There’s no stopping now
We keep things one hundred
Like we brothers and sisters
Knowing we got each other’s backs
No fake stuff
We know how to keep it together
This poem is my reflection
Of the times when I wanted to pack
Always looking back
It allowed the past to control my path
It is what is and
You just got to do what you got to do
You’ll get through and
You’ll live
Pick up those pieces and
Find the way to keep moving up
There isn’t an option to turn back
You got everything you need
Don’t ever stop
The road doesn’t end
Till you believe it does
This is the real Zhushen
The people don’t normally see
I take my chances
To grow my success
I give my heart
To any people of age
I don’t want to regret
All the friends I can make
My family will keep growing and
So will my success
I lived my life through poetry because
Poetry saved me
This poem is where I begin
The path of
The real me
Zhushen Zhang wrote “From my mind to my heart: A message to me” while a twelfth-grader at Franklin High School with WITS Writer-in-Residence Nikkita Oliver. Performed at SAL’s 2017/18 Poetry Series event with Tyehimba Jess on March 4, 2018, at McCaw Hall.