Always be on high alert
Look through the windows before you enter
Count the open seats
Stay close to an exit but far enough to see everyone else
Eyes forward
Hands down
Headphones in, but no music is ever playing
And remember to always stay alert
The more crowded the train car is the worse it gets
Packed like sardines crammed until there is no room left
But remember to still keep some distance
Make yourself smaller
Separate yourself from the man to your left
Watch peoples hands
Watch their eyes
Watch their phones
But never let them catch you
Sit close to a woman, a mother preferably
Count how many men there are
Deduct the ones that are the least threatening
But while you count never make eye contact
Because eye contact means you were looking too
Eye contact shows interest
Eye contact implies something more
Even when the eye contact means NOTHING
The anxiety of when my stop is coming up
Peering out the window every couple minutes
To ensure that I don’t miss it
The smell of cigarettes, weed, and ass
The unknown stains that cover the floor
The half ripped signs posted in each car
The words carved into the metal
The strange substance you accidentally touch while trying to get up
The screeching of the trains barely holding on to the tracks
The same way my sanity hangs on by a thread
Overstimulating all of my senses
Until I lose my self awareness and can no longer think
My station is next
I inch closer to the exit
Slipping past ever so slightly
Making tiny frame even more compact
Barely enough room to get by
Clutching my bag in one hand
Holding onto the pole with the other trying to keep my balance
As if the momentum from this train is pushing and pulling me
In an attempt to destabilize me more than it already has
Striving to knock me off my feet
A breath of relief as I finally get off
Just for the tension of the tenseness rising back up to my throat as a man approaches me
Asking for bus directions that he already has pulled up
Just as an excuse to initiate a conversation with me
Asking my name so I give a fake one
Trying to dodge the badgering follow up questions
About my school
About where I’m going
About where I live
About if I’m dating someone
Finally, when it reaches the question about my age
15 year old me knows that this is going to be the question that drives him away
Until it’s not
15 year old me being questioned by this grown man
Whose only concern, is when I’ll turn 16
As if that’s an acceptable follow up to say when you realize my age
15 year old me worried even more if he’s going to follow me on this bus
15 year old me just wanting to get home from my summer internship
15 year old me
wishing that my mother
would finally
let me get mace
Isabel (Isa) Medrano
Artist Statement
Intersection of how young black female bodies occupy public space through abstraction and the triangle as a classical symbolism. These bodies are transversing public spaces as they are seeking safe spaces.
Young Chicago Authors
Young Chicago Authors offers high-quality programs that nurture artistic development, social-emotional learning, and academic success through poetry and performance. Its Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival is the largest of its kind in the world, gathering over 200 youth poets from across Chicago, Chicago-land, and Northwest Indiana. The festival centers storytelling over competition and fosters listening, empathy, and creative risk. The ten poets featured here advanced through the 2025 festival and offered lines that were impossible to ignore.
Poetry Foundation
This program is made possible with support from the Poetry Foundation, which amplifies poetry and celebrates poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry.
