Scottlynn Ballard, 18 Graduate. Grad—to step. -ation—the state or quality of Graduation—the state of stepping into a quantitative unknown. Dear senior, You mispronounce unprecedence You Phoenix from the ashes of towers that towered a nation, you inciting change like exciting electricity, you Generation of the first black president with a precedent of choosing to be more than what you have been told Taking 90s hand-me-downs and turning them into novelties You were the first to see the phonebook become a Facebook Take 240 character tweets into #movements Make Ghostbusters out of Snapchat Connect the world at your fingertips Dear Senior, Did you forget it was you that made the case that love wins and won? You teenage revolutionaries using social media ammunitions Taking aim at establishments touting ghost manumissions A wise man read “Jim Crow may have flown the nest but our streets are still covered in his feathers” You are no longer scared of boogeymen You are Rousseau’s best dream Demanding government change and when they stood still Demanding a change in government. You wield language like a weapon, blacksmith new ones too How dare you think you cannot speak— don’t you know you are now your parents’ teachers in this New World? What did you study history for if not to learn the mistakes of the past? We worship Revolutions and Civil Rights Their leaders were not made in peacetime Its past time we recognized a common theme Leaders don’t choose what time to rise They rise when it is time. Dear senior, I know no one told you that stepping into the unknown would be this scary But what were all those years for if not to prepare you for the ones to come? The future is not guaranteed—it is sown It is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see Don’t you see you are green? We didn’t get to choose the time But we will rise. Like air, like sun, like sky Like everything you see before your eyes And the things you don’t yet too Everything the light touches, it is yours. Because you are forged with molten gold in your veins Fire in your eyes You are refined Leaders, it is time.