Pongo Poetry Project's mission is to engage youth in writing poetry to inspire healing and growth. For over 20 years, Pongo has mentored poetry with youth at the Clark Children & Family Justice Center (CCFJC), King County's juvenile detention facility.
Many CCFJC residents are Youth of Color who have endured traumatic experiences in the form of abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. These incidents have been caused and exacerbated by community disinvestment, systemic racism, and other forms of institutional oppression. In collaboration with CCFJC staff, Pongo poetry writing offers CCFJC youth a vehicle for self-discovery and creative expression that inspires recovery and healing.
Through this special bimonthly column in partnership with the South Seattle Emerald, Pongo invites readers to bear witness to the pain, resilience, and creative capacity of youth whose voices and perspectives are too often relegated to the periphery. To partner with Pongo in inspiring healing and relief among youth coping with mental and emotional turmoil, join the Pongo Poetry Circle today.
By a young person at the Clark Children & Family Justice Center
My real self is hidden.
If people could see me as I really am
they would see kindness, that I'm not
always hateful and dangerous.
I'm very nice and respectful.
I love family. Family is everything.
I love my mom. I'm forever grateful
to her. She is kind and sad
that I'm away from the family.
I love my dad. He's loving and caring.
I have an older brother
I look up to.
At night I feel pain for a lot of reasons.
Smoking stops my drama and my pain.
I wish I didn't need it.
I wish I was out.
I'm not sure what I wish for.
By a young person at the Clark Children & Family Justice Center
I just want to be like my mom.
She had her problems but she made sure
she made a good life for her kids.
Even as a single mom, she was so strong.
She worked and cleaned and cooked
and taught me how to cook. She taught me
how to fight, but she learned to calm herself down
when she got with my stepdad. I admire
how much my mom taught me.
I come from a big family with five kids.
I want to be like my mom how she got over
her alcoholism and has earned her GED
and is a supervisor at USPS. They have
a nice house now.
My mom and stepdad bought land
in Guatemala where my stepfather's family
had property. My mom got hepatitis
in Guatemala from the unsanitary water,
but she makes herself get better because
she was thinking of her kids.
When I was little, I was a rebel and I'm still
a rebel. But I'm going to change: go to school,
get away from the highway, and live a good life.
I want to be like my mother.
By a young person at the Clark Children & Family Justice Center
I been in here three weeks.
That's not that long
but I've noticed some things,
like people who care about me
who don't want to see me here
like my grandparents.
I wish I didn't push them away from me.
I moved out of their house
doin' drugs. It was my way
or the highway. I couldn't stop.
Go get high, do things I shouldn't do.
My girlfriend, she has a kid.
I pushed my girlfriend her kid away, too.
I kept bringing them things
and they said that's not what we want.
She just wanted my time.
Even though I pushed,
she still wants to be with me.
I dream about her every day.
It's like a replay of things
that already happened. I wake up
and see the walls of my cell
when I expected to roll over to her.
Our bonds are so tight.
In here I've been reflecting.
I'm glad in a way they caught me.
Looking at my addiction
I don't want to be like my mom.
She's been doing it for thirty years.
But I've only been doing it for a year.
I'm here to be the better one.
My grandparents been watching me and my mom
on the streets for thirty years
and maybe they see I want to try
to do what they taught me.
The police showed up deep.
Now that I'm clean I have all
these flashbacks.
If I were to go out and use again,
that's me playing with life.
It's sad, but that's what it took
to get me to stop.
📸 Featured image by 周杰意 Jieyi Zhou.
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