Promise

I think one thing 

I can do as a teacher is let my students change 

in front of me over weeks and years 

and not hold them to the promises 

they made earlier about who they are 

and how they feel 

I just open my arms 

to the way they are now 

I don’t remind them about what reality was 

before or ask them 

to acknowledge their softening

sweetening hardening striving

let them shift quietly

believed in their newness 

perceived with a goldfish’s memory 

of the little shitty stuff 

and a vault for the good