Missing page from “Black Girls Are Not Allowed To Kill Themselves”

My dad is really good at playing dominos 
He played Double 6 so well that his “friends”
called him “The Professor”
Sarcastically. Obviously.
My father was great with numbers,
But he could not read.
He tried very hard to hide it,
But anyone who could read could see it.
I was nine when I told the white girl across the street.
And he beat the shit out of me for it.
Not for discipline. Not for teaching.
But because he was embarrassed.
I was nine when I developed a phobia of people who could not read.
I was twenty-two when put into a classroom,
Filled with children who could not read,
And tasked with teaching them science.
I was not a miracle worker.
I was a child.
I let my students eat, sleep, watch TV, play, talk.
We learned science in between.
I was a child, so I gave up with my students.
It terrified me that so many could not read,
And I was not a miracle worker.
Not long after that, my principal,
A Black man that I respected,
Called me a disappointment for being unable to spin gold from straw.
The depression of my defeat turned me into a poet.
And I decided that if I couldn’t do miracles,
I would write them.
Literacy will save the world, people.
And I’m just doing my part.
I’m not Millennial Maya.
She passed in my lifetime.
However, 
I do hope to be one of many,
Millennial Harriets.
The revelation will not be televised.
reve = dream