‘I am not what you think!’

At 15, Antwon Rose Jr. wrote poem expressing fear, conflict

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Near the end of his sophomore year honors English course, Antwon Rose Jr., then 15, wrote a poem expressing fear, conflict and uncertaintyabout his future.

“I wonder what path I will take,” he wrote. “I hear that there’s only two ways out / I see mothers bury their sons / I want my mom to never feel that pain / I am confused and afraid.”

His former teacher, Laura Arthrell, remembered the May 2016 poem this week after learning that Antwon was shot and killed Tuesday during a traffic stop in East Pittsburgh.

She wanted his family to see it.

The assignment is an endof-May ritual in Ms. Arthrell’s class at Woodland Hills High School, a measuring stick for her students, who often begin the year lacking a focus on the world around them.

“We do this poem at the end of the year when they’ve started to think beyond themselves and about deeper issues, and it shows,” Ms. Arthrell said in a phone interview Thursday.

The poem, titled “I Am Not What You Think!”, provides a look at the young writer’s concerns about the world around him and fears that hung over him in the years before his death.

“I pretend all is fine,” he wrote. “I feel like I’m suffocating.”

Ms. Arthrell, who has taught for 22 years, remembered Antwon as a thoughtful, smiling student with a goofy streak. She remembered he turned the poem in late, but the substance earned him a perfect score.

“It’s important to know that so many people have this perception of our kids as being these violent gangbangers, when most of them are just kids going to school, trying to make themselves better, doing what you ask them,” she said. “There are more kids like Antwon, who are just trying to make a life for themselves.”

But she said his poem captured the conflict many of her current and former students face. She has lost count of her former students who have been killed over the years, she said.

“I understand people believe I’m just a statistic,” Antwon wrote. “I say to them I’m different/ I dream of life getting easier / I try my best to makemy dream come true / I hopethat it does.”

On Tuesday, when video of his death began to spread on social media, she reflexively wondered if it might have been one of her students. All of the killings have been senseless, but “this was unfathomable,” she said.

“Iwatchedtheentirevideo,” she said. “And I will never in my life erase the memory of AntwonRosebeingkilled.”