Dear teacher

Our GPA is not our price tag

my worth is not decided by my proximity to the magic amount of 4.0 dollars.

It's obvious what you think of the students

not sitting in your uppity advanced placement seats.

You give the silver spoon wielders a false sense of superiority

as they look down their nose at the students deemed too ghetto to touch

too stupid to conversate

"I bet they don't even know how to read" kind of kids.

They laugh without shame

while sitting cozy in their ivory towers

in the honors hallway at school

Dear teacher

I am not the girl you think you're talking to

when you lean into tell me something

after looking left and right to make sure there are no minority students around

behind my white drywall face

crawl the roaches that you're trying to avoid.

I'd like you to know that  I am Latina first.

That I learned to read in Spanish before I did English.

That I'm the face of what's coming is to infest your classroom

and there's no exterminator that can keep us out.

Dear teacher

Don't pretend this is not a classism thing.

Everyone knows that it's no coincidence that after school when the bell rings

that the kids that drive fancy cars

are the ones that just walked out of the honors hall

But teacher there's a growing number of exceptions to that rule

like me and my crew

as we ride the city bus

backpacks full of honors textbooks

and hearts full of hope.