Current Issue -

The Chance for a Choice

By Lula McAbee (13 years old) | Spring 2025 Inspire(d)

Future Focused: Listening to the Next Generation. A new Inspire(d) column written by pre-teens and teens, to help give the next generation a chance to voice their opinions.

How do you face fears?

Lula McAbee writes about facing fears and making choices:

My arms cling to the dirty metal rails, the gravel stabs my feet.
Nothing waits for me up here,
and the melody of the rippling water below sounds all too sweet.
Behind me is the bridge and the road. 
Everything is safe and familiar. 
Everything boring but everything calm
Everything I have ever known 

Illustration by Roxie Nichols

Below awaits the cold rush of Mississippi waters
Everything else.
Everything scary but everything new
Everything I wish to know

The wind picks up, tangling my hair and an empty metal pipe belts out a tune 
A boat’s approaching much too soon 

The girl beside me lets herself free
she falls without a care
and I can
‘t do this.

I’ve never done this before and 
I don’t know 
how deep the water really goes and 
what if I miss the safety of these rocks and dusty roads? 

This railing is my only tether
It’s warm from sitting in August weather
It’s holding me here and I feel safe 
But so entrapped and out of place
Needing to be free in a world where everything says
I can’t

That boat is getting closer
If I don’t do it now,
the chance is over.

What if I really can 
‘t do this?
I breathe in but don’t breath out,
my fingers loosen on the rails
My feet take a step forward onto nothing

And I’m falling but not failing,
I’m so much more than I’ve ever been 
and my fingers do not miss the touch of the railing, 
nor my feet the pain of the gravel, 
nor my mind the safety of the bridge.

Lula McAbee


Lula is an eighth grade student at Decorah Middle School who greatly enjoys writing poetry as a form of expression. Besides writing, they like crocheting (and a multitude of other crafts) and doing various forms of theater from being in the spotlight to making sure things run smoothly behind the scenes.

    Editor’s Note: Wanting to give the next generation an opportunity to share their voices, we have expanded the Future Focused section of Inspire(d) to include new writers! Partnering with Dana Hogan, the Extended Learning Program teacher at Decorah Middle School, we offered up a variety of prompts like, “What are your predictions for the future?” “What do you wish adults understood about you?” and also shared the Spring 2025 issue’s theme of tackling challenges and facing fears. Students submitted work, did edits, and three were chosen for this print issue of Inspire(d). Check them all out here! Here’s to Listening to the Next Generation!

    – Inspire(d) Editor-in-Chief Aryn Henning Nichols

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