They gave me a certificate today.
Paper. Official. My name typed above the number twenty-five
as if the years were something they had kept safe,
folded somewhere clean,
waiting to be returned.
And a pin.
Small enough to lose in the carpet.
The size of a period
at the end of a very long sentence.
I held them and said thank you.
I meant it.
I always mean it.
That is not the problem.
The problem is the math.
Twenty-five years.
A piece of paper.
A pin.
I taught from a screen,
from a spare room,
from a kitchen table when the desk was taken.
I taught people who drove three hours to get to campus
and people who could not get there at all,
and I was the reason they got through,
and I know that,
and I am not waiting for anyone else to say it.
But today they handed me something small enough to swallow
and called it recognition,
and I smiled,
and I meant the smile,
and I held both things at once
the way I have learned to hold both things at once,
which is one of the skills
they never put on the certificate.
Aquí estoy. Con veinticinco años. Todavía en pie.
Here I am. With twenty-five years. Still standing.
