In this article, two teacher educator researchers engage in a duologue to explore the pedagogical and poetic openings experienced during two individual youth empowerment school-based research projects--one a middle school poetry project, the other a high-school mentoring project. The projects engage minoritized youth with undergraduate students in colleges of education utilizing a methodology grounded in a theory of physical and metaphorical borderlands and border pedagogy for agentive participation. We assert that intentional formation of border spaces of participation and care within the silencing spaces of school serves as a foundation from which youth may build capacity for future actions for social activism and change.