i had just turned 12 and took everything solange said to heart. she said walk in your ways to rise. so i did. its all in part of living true to the weird younger sister tale. yet the thing is — with adolescence comes an exaggerated response in the brain's ventral striatum. the world likes to tell us that this is what turns children selfish. in reality, teenagers exhibit the most prosocial behavior out of any one. being a perpetural bystander, my prosociality came early. often times, i stayed after school to organize the library and loitered the halls because i didnt like the tightness of my home. walking by the cafeteria i saw the high schoolers rehearsing their in the heights show. a girl standing on the table had her dubi on and was repeating the 'no me diga' line from the song. this is crazy, i thought, they wrote a song about my school. i looked at the girl closer and saw someone familiar. her slam poetry team had just gotten to finals at louder than a bomb massachusetts. i know because i would loop those performances on youtube. i remember the way her voice jumped an octave at the end of words. she raised her hands on the stage and prayed to Maria. and the crowd snapped. the following year, my friend's coooool older brother would join the same team. he was one of three out transgender kids in the 8th grade. i remember the poem he performed telling his younger sister not to hate the guatemalan part of her. i didnt know she felt this way. later that year, he taught me to be weary of acronyms our school wore like badges. destin, you don't remember me, but you taught me to rise.