Before he was even born, Jaydan Rivera was made to choose between the two worlds of excellence and imprisonment. With a mother who immigrated from the Dominican Republic and a father marked by the weight of a conviction, Jaydan was handed a route, one leading toward the path of a criminal. He chose to reject it. Instead, opting to be a rose that grew from concrete. Poetry became an extension of his voice in his sophomore year, sparked by an English teacher who looked past the STEM-minded student he appeared to be and saw the writer buried beneath. Now in college, double majoring in statistics and economics, he continues to sharpen that same voice, using each word to shape the man he chose to become. Living his life was a number game; surviving it was to break a statistic, and thriving in it was nothing short of poetic.