Our art will live on after us,
The works that broke barriers, chains,
The moments that took the worn tropes and offered something more.

Society has offered us the same song,
Same poems,
Same white heroes and dark skinned villain movies over and over so much so
We can always tell who the good guy is.

But true art,
Timeless art,
Not only offers a hero who lives long after his work,
But gives a human who gave his everything to become a King,
To make it so kids everywhere stopped having just angry disparaged white male role models to look up to.

And in this way,
The Black Panther will live forever,
And so will Chadwick Boseman.

Lynne Schmidt is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, and mental health professional with a focus in trauma and healing. She is the author of the chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press), and On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West), which was featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed for PTSD Awareness Week. Their work has received the Maine Nonfiction Award, Editor’s Choice Award, and was a 2018 and 2019 PNWA finalist for memoir and poetry respectively. When given the choice, Lynne prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans.