"Shoot Me Dead" by #StudentStowePrize runner up

In June, the Stowe Center presented the 2014 Student Stowe Prize for writing by high school and college students that motivates social justice. The runner up in the high school category was Yesica Solano of Mount Vernon, WA for her poem Shoot Me Dead. Yesica wrote the poem, below, in 2009 when she was only 12 years old, and published it in DreamFields: An Anthology by Mount Vernon Migrant Youth & Their Allies. For more on the book, and to purchase a copy, please visit dreamfieldsbook.wordpress.com.

Shoot Me Dead

by Yesica Solano

My pencil is writing but they're meaningless words 

Looking at the teacher but not attentive to what occurs 

My thinking somewhere else but here

Thoughts after school are relaxing on beer.

One more friend now vanished and gone

Crossing the border,three shots hit the ground, he was done 

Just before his loss, a painful climb

Uncle Peewee shot down, tased four times 

His eyes now closed with no second chance

With him now gone, no air to breathe, no song to dance 

His eyes now closed, left two kids behind

Border patrol tarred his life, I wish it was mine

Want to plead forgiveness on part of border patrol

Want to help my family and friends overcome anger and take control 

Want to retaliate back at border patrol for all the illegals killed

Want to let them know they're creating empty spaces that once were filled 

Families got no choice but to fill them up with pictures of the past

Many now realize what they have can be gone with just three shots or a flash

People risking lives just for their family's need

Innocents dying while there are others creating havoc, smoking weed 

The laws just making up lies that create our reputation

Thought this was a free country, not an anti-Mexican nation.

Wanna take a moment of this world's time 

To remember all the illegals that have died

I know I'm just twelve and you think I don't understand 

Question for border patrol

"How does it feel watching an innocent die with a gun in hand?" 

Can they sleep at night knowing there are families dying with tears? 

Kids getting angry, ready for revenge, converting into their worst fears

Why kill an illegal when you can just send them back? 

What's the point just killing and faking illegals attacked?

When in reality border patrol had fun chasing and shooting them down 

But soon their time will come because what goes around comes around 

So many innocents blacking out, hitting the cold ground

So many illegals now dead with stories to be found

Point is border patrol likes shooting Mexicans

Can't deny it because it's true

So if I ran with no sign of attack, would you shoot me too? 

If you caught me running helpless, what would you do?

Would you fake my attack and shoot me too?

So many harmless people killed, families spread apart

My country is Mexico, border patrol can shoot me, aiming for my heart 

People going back to their country still end up shot in the head

I'm not an illegal but if you see me crossing the border 

Go ahead

Shoot Shoot me dead.

The Student Stowe Prize is awarded bi-annually to one high-school and one college student for excellence in writing for social justice...and we're already looking ahead to 2016! Entries for the next Student Stowe Prize are due January 15th, 2016 and guidelines will be posted to our website soon.