My name is Jyair David, and I am a 17-year-old queer, autistic, African-American, and caucasian man. I’ve lived at my mom’s house full-time since I was eleven, as I decided to leave my dad’s house due to the way he and my stepmother treated me. Over a year ago, I completely cut him out of my life, since he hasn’t done much for me besides degrading my mental health. We have had a lot of strife due to my sexuality, as well as the fact that he wants to restrict me from coming out to my brother, with no regard to how being forced into the closet feels for me, and in the past few years, I have not felt accepted or heard by him. And growing up without a father, having to teach myself how to be a man, has undoubtedly been the most challenging part of my life. In my first three years of high school, I dealt with an immense amount of depression and suicidal thoughts. Doctors couldn’t help me much, since I would not swallow my pills, my stomach shrank because I refused to eat, for years I was sexually harassed and assaulted by a classmate, and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Most of my memories from the era have been purged, but what I do remember is that, while my dad kept a distance from my life’s disaster, my mama did everything she could to support me. She poured money into outpatient care for me, and had me see a nutritionist and therapist every week. She did all of this despite me taking my anger out on her, calling her by her first name, and telling her I hated her constantly. Through these tough times, I began to write. I bled my heart out onto the page, into poetry, and over the course of my junior year of high school, I began to make friends, stopped self-harming, and slowly–very slowly–began to love my mom again. And somehow, she stayed loving me back through all of the mess. My mom has also been the person who has supported me the most through my educational journey. Unfortunately, during my years of severe depression, I drained her bank account with the many medical bills I accrued. More specifically, she was forced to use my college savings that she had started when I was young. And with my dad out of the picture, I have to pay for college with my own savings from my part-time job. However, while she may not be able to fully pay for my higher education, my mom has vigorously supported me every step of the way. When I was young, she always made sure I stayed on my best behavior at school, and as I grew up, she encouraged me to go to college, even though many of my age would not. And now, as I’m just two months away from graduating, she helps me identify scholarships weekly so that I have plenty of options for what to write for. Her support has shown me how to chase what I am after in order to not to fall behind. So, in return, I write of her immensely positive impact on me in memoirs and in poems, so that one day, when my work reaches the world, they will see a woman who has risen above all obstacles to support her son, whether she had the help of a husband or not.

My name is Jyair David, and I am currently a senior at Green Hill High School, set to graduate in 2026. I am a writer, and more specifically a poet, and have been for nearly three years now. At the young age of 17 I have already been published three times, soon to be four once my school’s literary magazine comes out (which I, as one of the leaders of my school’s Writers Guild, helped advertise and put together). My goals in life are to, one, become a bestselling author, with a large collection of books that change the way my readers think. I write to challenge systemic racism, violence, and oppression, as well as identity struggles as a biracial man. Additionally, I want to become a professor of hip-hop poetics. I write prose poetry with hip-hop traits, and hope to someday be in a classroom teaching kids to write in their own unique way like I do, as opposed to the commodified Insta-poetry that we so often see today. To do this, I will need my PhD, which is why I am so committed to pursuing a higher education. I actually first became interested in teaching about a year ago, when I founded my school’s poetry club. My duties were to put slides together that taught about ways to write and different aspects and techniques, and I also was the sole advertiser for the club, hanging up flyers and telling all of my friends about upcoming meeting dates. Then, a few months after founding it, poetry club was merged with the Writers Guild, which I had also already been leading, and I was suddenly put into the position of co-leading a classroom full of club members eager to write. It has been an amazing experience for the past school year, and has really opened my eyes to the joy and beauty of educating. Soon after our first few meetings, in which I would continue lending a hand to making presentations about writing, I signed up for the Teaching as a Profession class at my high school. Through it I made many friends, learned a lot about the best way to care for students and effectively teach them what they need to know, discovered the kind of teacher that I want to be, and so much more. I passed a test, getting a teaching certification at the end of the semester, pushing me one step closer to my dream career. Now, unfortunately, my father is not in my life and does not financially support me, so I am unable to pay my way through college like some of my peers are able to. I only have my mom supporting me, and even then, there is only so much money that she is able to devote to my education. I’ve spent years saving, working a minimum-wage job, yet the money I’ve accrued is still not enough to propel me through the debt that college will inevitably thrust upon my shoulders. Which is why I am so grateful for any help I can get, and would be beyond overjoyed to receive this scholarship. Thank you for considering me.

My name is Jyair David, and I come from a single-parent household. It wasn’t always this way; I used to switch from staying at my dad's and stepmom’s house to my mom’s every other week. However, due to struggles with my dad due to his homophobia and anger towards me, I decided to live with my mom full-time about seven years ago. And I have since cut off my father. Living with my mom full-time means that she has a big burden on her hands–taking care of me–and she also has had to focus all of her money towards past medical bills I’d garnered during my two years of depression. I spent a lot of time in outpatient care, as well as with a nutritionist for my anorexia. It’s safe to say that I’ve gone through much hardship, but thankfully, in the last few years, I have overcome that darkness. However, my mother’s finances have never fully recovered. Due to this, she is not going to be able to help me pay for college in any way, even though I need to get a higher education in order to pursue my future career as a professor. I hope to one day teach hip-hop poetics, as I, myself, am a writer and hip-hop-head. More specifically, I am a poet, and I write about politics as well as systemic racism and oppression. My style is very influenced by rap, and I write to change the way we think. About society, ourselves, the way we write, and how we receive art… I strive to change a lot of things within my readers’ minds. My biggest accomplishment is undoubtedly having been published three separate times by the young age of 17, and I continue to submit my work to various literary magazines to get an outreach. I already seem to be making a splash in the literary world, as multiple big literary magazines have followed me on Instagram, as well as writing accounts, and I expect this to continue as more of my poetry is released online. This is definitely very exciting for me, as it’s been my dream to become a writer for as long as I can remember. If little me could see me now, turning my pain into phenomenal poems, I couldn’t help but be absolutely filled with hope that maybe, through the struggles with my father, and the growing pains with my mom, I’d pull through.

My name is Jyair David, and I am a young gay, biracial man–Black and white. My race is a large part of my identity, as with it has come a lifelong identity crisis surrounding what community I truly belong to. Additionally, I am a writer, published three times by the age of 17, and craft hip-hop adjacent poems that tackle themes of oppression, fear, overconfidence, and belonging. In the future, I would like to be a professor of hip-hop poetics. I write to change the way we think about society, ourselves, and the way we receive–as well as create–art. I do this through my own unique poems, blending prose poetry with rap cadence and energy, and I also aim to bring this to the classroom one day. I truly love to influence minds, as well as lead and teach. In fact, I have taken a course of Teaching as a Profession in my school, where I would sit in on a freshman class every week and at the end of the year I taught it, and I plan to take everything I learned about crafting lesson plans and guiding the room, as well as adapting to different needs, and carry it to my future career. I want to teach hip-hop poetics specifically because I feel that so much of this generation's poetry is commodified. And when young minds read work so low-effort and as basic as Insta-poetry is, it influences them to write in a very similar way. I know this because I can relate. I used to admire artists such as Rupi Kaur and write cookie-cutter love poems, proud of work that only ever benefited me. I never branched out with it or spoke on a topic interestingly, and I definitely never cared for what my work would give its readers. At most, a sense of camaraderie, but more likely, they would see my sorrow, feel empathy, and then live as if they had read nothing. Our art needs to change. And now, three years after I first picked up the pen, my writing has majorly evolved. I am now able to effectively utilize rhyme and rhythm, and it speaks heavily on politics, biracial struggles, and Black oppression. Aside from being a professor, I am going to become an author very soon. I plan to release my first poetry collection within the next two years, and it is built on the foundation of years of anger, struggle, and sorrow. Because when I look outside, I see a fire that will never go out, and I have accepted that racism will never be fixed, and the working man will always be screwed over in the end. But still, I speak out. Because like the world, my flame will never stifle, and I write and share it to open eyes, and open eyes, which in turn open hearts. Something that could never be done with a typical love poem, based on the sole selfish need to self-express. And still I self-express, except that now it is to wake the world. I hope that one day, I am successful in my mission, even if it is only a handful that ever truly reads my work. I hope to become critically acclaimed and die a legend for changing students’ lives. Inside the class or out.

My name is Jyair David, and I am a young gay writer. As a gay man, I have faced many challenges throughout my life. Of course, there’s the constant teasing in school, and the most severe case of bullying I have faced for my identity has been three years of sexual harassment. A guy would target me, moaning at me in hallways, pretending like we were friends, and giving me nicknames such as “Big J,” and he would even follow me home every day and try to film me, asking me things like why I’m gay. It was awful, but worse than that is my own father’s homophobia. I have dealt with and coped with the past sexual harassment from my classmate, but my dad’s shame of me is a much more current issue. He doesn’t “let me” come out to my little brother, due to him not wanting to “expose” my brother to queerness when he is so young. I already strongly disagree with the notion that homosexuality is a touchy subject that shouldn’t be taught along with heterosexuality, but what makes it worse is that my brother is nearly ten years old, and also already knows about gay people’s existence. In fact, he has multiple gay classmates and is very kind and accepting towards them. Despite all of this, my dad refuses to let me be my full self around him, and his enraging treatment of me has completely driven me out of his home. I have cut him out of my life. I take all of this adversity and pour it into my art. As a political poet, I tackle the big issues I see in the world, including the oppression of African Americans (of which I am one), as well as homophobia in our society. And whenever I tackle a big issue, I always relate it to my personal experience. For example, in a more recent poem I’ve written, I address the fear of being an openly gay man through first generalizing the struggle, and then honing in on my own life out of the closet. I do the same with racism, correlating slavery and segregation to today’s much subtler racism–and in a poem, I reference how one time a 10-year-old called me a monkey, thinking it was in reference to my skin tone. But in the piece, I clarify that we are called that due to roots in slavery, and people first sold us by saying we were closer in relation to the apes. Finally, through years of writing, it has always helped me to release whatever hate I hold onto, cope with ugly truths, and so much more. I am so passionate about writing due to its power to heal, but in addition to that, I want to change the way we, as a society, think. We face so much systemic racism, as well as overlooked homophobia, and I feel responsible to challenge it in a way that truly registers and matters to even the most ignorant of people. I write loud and proud, to contrast the quiet kid that I am in public. Because writing gives me the power to speak out. And that is why, one day, I will become a critically acclaimed author, challenging the system.

As an accomplished young writer, I intend to become a professor that teaches the correlation between poetry and rap. I am a poet who takes a lot of inspiration from music, and I typically write about politics and the current state of the world. I began to write creatively three years ago, and have since been published three times. I am also very involved in my school, as I am currently a member of the Film, Book, First Generation Student Alliance, and Educators Rising clubs, and am a co-leader of Writers Guild. I also used to lead the poetry club after re-founding it, but it was merged into the Writers Guild at the start of this school year–my senior year. But more than just teaching lessons, I will aim to build bonds with my students in order to inspire them to be the best versions of themselves they can be, and I’ll strive to be the support that they might need. I plan to make a positive impact on our world by being the foundation for students to soar off of and achieve great things. I see my teachers being this for me every day, acting as emotional support when I am going through something, as well as guidance when I am struggling with decisions about my future and college. Teachers truly are heroes, and I hope to add myself to that community of those set on helping young minds to be their greatest. It’s honestly surprising that this is the turn my plan for my future has taken, as I used to think it strange that an adult would choose a job that pays so little and takes them right back to school–an environment that has always been exhausting, as well as anxiety-inducing, for me. Ever since I started writing, I envisioned just being an author with a part-time job on the side and being content with that. However, I took a creative writing class a year ago, and it completely changed my view of things. I was a junior, and seeing Ms. Danella getting a bunch of students to sit each day and write was so amazing to me. She would teach us about many different genres and writing styles, and each few weeks would be something new. We would constantly write and share our writings with each other, and she would even give us plenty of feedback on our work. It was so amazing to see her fostering connections with all of her students, and it made me realize that I, too, wanted to be that for learners, as well as impart my knowledge about poetry in order to hone my students’ crafts. Since that moment, it took me a few months to finally stop considering teaching as a last resort for a career, and instead a real dream of mine. I decided to become a professor after I spent time leading poetry club, making presentations that I presented as lectures. It made me realize that constructing lectures could be just as fun as making those slides. And this year, I’ve enrolled in my school’s Teaching as a Profession class to learn how to be the best teacher I can be when I finally go down that road. I also view all of my teachers differently now, respecting their efforts and noticing all of the tactics they use to uniquely structure their classes and lessons. I can’t wait until I grow into that role, and can be just as phenomenal as all of my teachers have been to me.

I remember a few years ago when I first started listening to Sabrina Carpenter. Now, this was when I was just starting to get the hang of writing myself, and my main focus was on love poetry. I listened to her "emails i can't send" album first, and I absolutely loved it. From tracks like "already gone" to "bet you wanna", "Feather", "Nonsense", and even the crown jewel "emails i can't send" itself, she struck me as an amazing lyricist. Her words were immediately able to pull me in, with sad lines about her father and broken relationships to brilliant themes about how her father affected the way she views all men, and I could never have worded that topic better myself. She pulled at my heartstrings, and from then on, I was a fan. When "Short n' Sweet" came out, I remember being ecstatic, along with all of my friends, about the poppy vibes and sass it brought. "Bed Chem" and "Espresso" were immediate favorites, of course, but when Jenna Ortega starred along with Sabrina in the "Taste" music video, I had to add that to the top spot as well. Songs like the classic "Looking at Me" and "Let Me Move You" from the Netflix movie "Work It" (phenomenal movie, might I add) stay in my mind as well, as they're honestly just so fun to listen to. Lastly, her newest album, "Man's Best Friend," brings just the same fun-loving energy as "Short n' Sweet", but somehow with even more bangers. "When Did You Get Hot" honestly just has me smitten. But, to be honest, Sabrina helped me to love myself all those years ago. Just "Feathers" alone taught me how important it is to put yourself first, no matter how important somebody else is to you, and I will forever love her for that.

I am the most Gen Z human alive! Hi, I’m Jyair David, 17 years old and a senior at Green Hill High School. I do so many things every day that prove that I am the most Gen Z human alive! Let me walk you through my schedule. First, I wake up at 3 pm on weekends and days off. Then, I stay on my phone the entire day and have the TV on in the background, as well as my computer open with YouTube playing. I don’t go to sleep until around 5 am because I’m usually busy watching more YouTube, scrolling on TikTok, or listening to good music. Now, you might be thinking, what makes me so special? Well, on Instagram alone, I follow thousands of people so that I can fill my days with brain rot reels. And more than that, I follow hundreds on TikTok and YouTube. And more than that, my world revolves around what’s trending on TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and more! Skibidi toilet rizz!

Billie Eilish has always been such a great influence on my life. I remember when I first started listening to her seriously, around the same time I started writing poetry. And she has never been just a singer to me. She’s been a major role model, teaching me nearly everything I knew when I first started writing. Through listening to her songs all day and every day, I learned a lot about how to tug on a listener/reader’s heartstrings and put heavy emotion into lines. Now, while I could never truly pick out my three favorite songs of hers, if I really had to choose, I’d have to say listen before i go, WILDFLOWER, and idontwannabeyouanymore. Now, I love each of these for the exact same reasons: they are elegantly written, make me want to cry every single time I listen to them, and have held me through some of the toughest times of my life. Like all of her music, these three pieces are deeply relatable, and when I was wrestling with the worst of my depression, these songs stood by me like nobody else would. They helped me cry, and they put me in her own shoes, for a second. Whether I see her and I standing on a rooftop, crying in a hotel, or gazing in the mirror, I feel the music wrap itself around me like a warm, weighted blanket. And it helped to let it out; all of the pain, frustration, and longing, which I could’ve never expressed on my own. I remember when I used to make playlists, entirely of her works, about a certain person or just a feeling I’d find myself dug in, and I could see the lists of songs and find a deep comfort in the titles and lyrics. I remember when I first downloaded Instagram and followed nearly a thousand fan accounts for her. I remember describing myself as Billie Lover, and Billie Lover alone, because that was the identity I had settled into. Lately, though, over the past year, I grew out of my depression and formed my sense of self. I still love Billie deeply, of course, and she reigns over my Spotify account like a queen with her kingdom–I somehow managed to listen to WILDFLOWER over 800 times in the month after the release of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT as proof–but now I’ve evolved. I’ve grown a lot, out of my depression, as my own person, and even as a writer. Billie Eilish lover, but I also love rap now, jamming double entendres together with my bare hands, and making up rhymes and rhythm and wordplay like I never could before. Billie got me here. Without her, I would have never picked up the pen, at least not nearly as early as I did. I wouldn’t have learned how to tug on heartstrings with my fingertips or to use metaphors and similes as skillfully as she does. She is more than just a building block, more than the foundation of my being and my craft. She was there for me when I needed her and helped me grow out of my old ways and chains. I’ve moved on from it all. I’ve grown. All in all, Billie Eilish and her music have been a giant inspiration in my life and have helped me grieve, cope, and grow. Without her, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today, and I will always be grateful for that. Thank you for reading and allowing me the opportunity to apply!