2O26 Tom Lee Poetry and Spoken Word Contest, First Place Winner: Nevaeh McDuffy

We, Too, Are River
Nevaeh McDuffy, Trezevant High School

We come from houses that hum with history—
kitchens baptized in grease and gospel,
porches where laughter braids the July air.
From mothers who measure love by the handful

a pinch of salt, a stern look, a whispered prayer.
From fathers and father-figures—
steel-toed boots, tired hands,
backs bent like question marks asking, Will this be enough?

We learn early how to answer.
Keep your hands visible.
Keep your voice gentle.
Keep your dreams loud but your body small.
Write your name clearly so it cannot be erased.
The world sometimes sees our skin before our soul—
our hoodie before our honor.

And still—
We rise.

In our homes there is a different curriculum:
season struggle until it tastes like survival,
iron doubt sharp as Sunday collars,
remember we are architects of hope.
“You are somebody,” they tell us—
and when the world forgets, we remember for it.

There are nights when sirens split the dark,
mornings when headlines bruise our eyes.
We carry fear like a second backpack—
heavy, invisible, necessary.
Why must innocence practice defense?
Why must we be twice as good to be half as safe?

But do not mistake sorrow for surrender.
For every slammed door, a hymn.
For every cracked sidewalk, a chalk-drawn crown.
We clap on two and four, turn pain into percussion,
laugh from the diaphragm of history,
love like it might be rationed tomorrow.

We are not percentages—we are possibility.
Not only what we endure, but what we build.
See the river behind our eyes,
the homes that made us—loud, loving, real.
We are a chorus.
And together, we rise.