Sometimes, people come into your life and they don't just change who you are, they SHAPE who you are. I wrote this as a spoken word poem dedicated to one of the most inspirational teachers, mothers, and women I've ever met and now, as a second-semester freshman in college, feeling far away from my loved ones in so many ways, I dedicate a publication to one of the people who has always kept me strong.

This poem is called "Ma."

I was in the smallest wing of my school when I heard it. This is the place where colors become brighter and words become softer.

The fiery-haired woman I had been working alongside for the past four months squealed in delight.

I turned around, back to my class, to find her jaw-slacked, cheeks flushed, and eyes bright

There was a bundle of gift paper at her feet, and something in her hands mysterious enough to grab the attention of my entire class.

Behind me, they came alive—their legs stretched and they bounced in their seats, eyes wide, eager to uncover the mystery. So was I.

That's when I saw it. In her hands lay a pocketbook plashed in blues and purples and whites all laced together perfectly. Without looking, I knew—it read “ Vera Bradley”

The teacher breathed a delighted sigh and I did the opposite, breathing her exhale into my inhale, I felt my insides tangle and twist.

This was all too familiar.

This is what growing up feels like, I remember.

When I was in 6th grade, I was assigned a homeroom teacher.

Her name was Mrs. Schwach. She was a Jewish mother, the size of a candle.

She decorated our classroom in patterns and designs, and wore a bright purple Vera Bradley pocketbook. She was radiant. She spoke softly to everyone, addressing us only as scholars, as leaders, as friends.

She asked us to dance, to sing, to experiment, to research, to analyze, to create, to speak. She asked us to be whoever we wanted—to paint ourselves in every color or none at all.

She asked us to learn.

And not in between textbook covers or Power-Point presentations. She refused to let our knowledge have limits. She dared us to want more.

We begged for homeroom to last, and it never did. Every day she sent us off to explore the other classrooms, other teachers. The ones she knew we were lucky to have, and she reminded us:

Don't forget ever what you can do if you allow yourself to.

Make the best of your hallways and classrooms and teachers.

She was an illusion of tranquility and love, right up until she wasn’t. When the days got longer and winds got colder, there was a change.

The classrooms and hallways and teachers were changing, and so were we.

Our wonders met our worries and our hope met our worries and we became inclined to doubt before any other emotion—and we had so many of them.

Our days become clouded with stress and worry and sadness and guilt and there were 34 of us—34 of us with enough emotion to crumble the walls that surrounded us; we thought they would collapse.

We hurt each other. We made mistakes. We spent hours upon hours every day running in circles trying to make each other more perfect and we got dizzy.

Our classroom became filled with the lost and the misunderstood.

As the cold passed, some of us figured it out—found themselves, found others, found each other, found strangers

I did not.

And that is when she materialized again; swept me up in all of my pieces and told me to think of her as glue, think of her as hope, think of her when everything else was hard to do.

And I did.

Now, it is the next year. We have survived the cold and braved the summer and blown in different directions like dandelion seeds. We are 7th graders.

I walk into my 7th grade homeroom and I am uneasy. There are no bright colors here. I spend time trying to shift and shape my way around the new chairs and new voices that I know I don’t fit. I am uncomfortable.

I set out to find her as soon as homeroom ends and she welcomes me, introduces me to her new 6th grade English class and tells them:

“This is Aneila. She’s a writer. She’s brilliant. She’ll be helping me shape all of you for the next 9 months.”

She gave me a purpose that year, and every year after that. Similar to the year before, she didn’t ask me to follow any of the rules; that’s not what teaching is, she said.

Instead, she asked me to dance, to sing, experiment, to research, to analyze, to create, to speak.

She asked me to listen, and to teach, and to believe that my voice—even on the days when i felt it had been ripped away from me—mattered.

She tells me that on the days when I realize my hands are too small to grasp all of the hurt I want to heal or to wash away all the mistakes I want to forgive to remember her. To remember myself. To remember that the warmer months are coming, the colors will always be bright, my existence will always be important.