Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems from northern Illinois poets. This week’s poet is Auburn high school’s LIT UP group member, Kaila Anderson. Anderson is also a former Rockford Youth Poet Laureate. She served in 2023.
The LIT UP poetry group started as a sixth-grade project in 2015 by Lori Beach-Glass. The students are in high school now, but they continue to plaster their words across the community. This group participates in an open Mic at the Certified Open Mic and Poetry Slam at the Rockford Public Library Nordlof Center.
The group visited WNIJ and performed on Facebook Live in April. Some of the students left a lyrical gift. This poem is by Anderson. Her poem is called “Dear Little Girl.”
Dear little girl, It's me... your future self
The year is 2024 and you're now a junior in high school.
Now, little girl... I'm here to let you know right now that you will be okay. Right now, everything for you is happy... Lots of sunshine, tons of friends, rainbows and unicorns... Not a lot of worries, except maybe which band is the coolest or who's gonna be at the sleepover this weekend Life seems kinda like everything is a fairytale, you know?
Like you could have most anything you wanted, within reason, right? Well, honey.....Life won't always be that way.
In your near future, you will deal with an immense amount of pain. Soon, your world will be flipped upside down in a matter of minutes. Something that you could never imagine could happen WILL happen, You will torture yourself thinking about all the possible things you could've done to deserve this... But the truth is, you did absolutely nothing. It wasn't anything you did or anything you said... or anything you believed... This truly had nothing at all to do with you... It
Except.. has everything EVER to do with you. Life will simply hand you a bunch of lemons, Expecting you to know how to make lemonade, But the truth is...you don't know how to make lemonade. You don't even know how to read that recipe, Let alone memorize it... yet. But trust me, little self.. You soon will. You'll get there. I feel like I need to apologize to you...to me... Because I know what's to come. I know that there's pain and confusion and heartache... Right around the corner. I also know you can't wait to grow up,,, you're in such a hurry! But, I promise you... it's really not that great.
