1st Place: Alyssa Jean-Louis

Senior, Dreyfoos School of the Arts

Heritage?

Through half-lidded eyes
I trudge to the bathroom at 8:20 in the morning.
I stare at the girl in the mirror.
She has kinky black hair,
dark-brown almost black-looking eyes,
dark, clear skin, a wide nose, round lips,
and with all her black features, her name is white.
Her heritage shows itself on the surface,
but the language is not on her tongue,
the traditions are not in her memory,
and it is not shown in her name.
Today, as my grandpa lies in his hospital bed,
the grandparent I could never speak to
as language barriers locked away relationships,
and I get ready to visit him in his hospital cell,
it feels like a piece of that heritage is dying with him.