We came to a stop,
the door opened
and a thick air filled the car
and creeped into my lungs.
I cough and sniffle,
dirt covers my face.
As we walk down the streets
of red, orange, blue and green houses,
mix matched tall and short, big and small
made of twig cement or bricks
Fruit stand, carts selling make-up
tacos and aguas frescas
line the block and barefooted children run everywhere
asking for food or money.
I can feel the warmth in every step I take
to get my grandma’s house.
I hear “bien” and “como estas,”
a language that
I am a raindrop wild
Sitting in a pond so mild
It’s boring here each day
With nothing to do, nothing to say
Some fellow raindrops got slurped up
By a flock of thirsty ducks
I wouldn’t want to meet that fate
Inside a duck does not sound great
But one day I started to rise
Slowly soaring to the skies
I began to break into droplets so small
You could barely see me at all
The other droplets broke up too
And floated with me in the blue
I asked the sun what this thing was
He replied as he usually does
“It’s called evaporation, Child,
But you aren’t still a raindrop wild
You’ve simply taken a new form
Why, Child, you’ve been reborn!
I’ve changed you into gas, you see
And a gas is what you shall be
Water vapor is your new name,
But that will not stay the same.”
HIgher and higher I soared
I began to condense, I was no longer bored
We clumped together drop by drop
The cold air blew, we couldn’t stop
Squeezing tighter and tighter, packed within
Ominous, gray, battered by wind
I asked the sun
sounds foreign now
and I realize; I’ve missed this place, my home.
Fulmore Middle School
8