When you see someone crying,
You should help.

You saw her cry,
You didn’t help.

But I was bowling my eyes out,
And she was barely sniffling.

My grandpa said some harsh stuff,
I wondered if he’d had enough.
I tried not to cry,
Deep down, I hoped he knew why.

He said “Gender’s not even real”,
And anyone who thinks so should just deal.

I said, “They/them” folks want to be seen,
As people, not some in-between.
It didn’t seem silly or wrong to me,
In fact, I felt a kind of key.

A few years on, I learned to speak—
With sharper words, and less critique.

I fell and lost a ski,
The man helping called me a he.
I really loved it,
I didn’t know why but I did.

What should “being a woman” mean?
Does grandpa think I’m making a scene?

I never liked Disney princesses,
I hated wearing dresses.
I did like football,
Gender felt like a big brick wall.

My long hair, was to much to bear,
Cutting it off was a grasp for air.

Now my grandpa thinks I look like a boy,
I can’t help but think of gender as a toy.
A game you can cheat, but never quite win,
A myth I’ve stopped believing in.

Grandpa cling to a truth so small,
While I see no sense in a wall at all.

Before you start reading:
None of these messages were ever sent. Niki made them up. Niki is me.
She’s scared of losing a friendship — so she writes instead of speaking.
That way, she never risks an answer.
But maybe, if she writes enough, she won’t forget what it felt like.


Niki
24 May 2025
00:04
age 14

YOU ARE SO PERFECT
not because of respect or intellect
or the one hundred you got on the exam
and it’s not that i don’t give a ****
about those things
but i DO care about how you pull my strings
your voice so soft so gentle
your mind so judgemental
you’ve got everything figured out
will never be too loud
nor too quiet you say what you must
but don’t want everything to be discussed
you know what you want and expect
you know the impact
i wanted to be like you so bad
now that i think about it it’s sad
but you’re a musical in a world of songs you’re not right in a world full of wrongs
you look so stunning so pretty
pretty like stars outside of my city
that’s a weird place for me to draw a line
this city is as much yours as it’s mine
but you would rather see darkness
outside of it while i like the starkness
sure i talk and smile and laugh
but you’re the confident bibliotaph
you’re the only person i show my poetry
i hope you see how special that is to me
now i established all of that
yet still didn’t hint what i’m getting at
something i will never be able to do
is measure or stand up to you
and i grew to accept it  
i LOVE you but it still HURTS a little bit.


Poppy Piume
5 July 2025
19:37
age 15

YOU ARE SO LEFT
steal songs personalities commit theft?
you have opinions engraved in your soul
i came out to you then felt a hole
rainbows on your bags socks and hats
you know “facts” never numbers or stats
i don’t want to fight
you don’t want to admit i’m right
you’re supportive but supported too
in some ways i’m jealous of you
you’ve been doing some healing
sharing what you’re feeling
i hope you’re happy and starstruck
while i am trying not to cry and feel stuck
maybe you can’t see
i hate you making fun of me
for marks i worked hard to get
things i wish i would have said
dreams i want to achieve some day
then i’ll be free from the things you say
the songs we both listen to
expectations set by you
the words you write
i’ll live in darkness without you’re light
but you might repeat “i’m not right, i’m left”
i’ll realise you did commit theft
and i’ll learn to love your art
as i figure out you STOLE MY HEART.


Niki
2 November 2027
23:41
age 16

I AM SORRY
that’s what I’ll say once I know the story
still won’t really know what to do
but might tell you how I felt about you
it will be too late
we’ll convince ourselves it wasn’t fate
you’ll have a lovely girlfriend by that time
I’ll be seeing a guy and my love won’t rhyme.


Poppy Piume
13 December 2030
01:30
age 20

I FEEL BETRAYED
i wish we would have stayed
this wouldn’t be such a ***** up
if we were still in that city but we grew up
you used to hate everything you now are
how did we get this far
from what we used to be
little you would want to unsee
she literally wouldn’t allow
the boyfriend you have got now
the small me would be sad as well
she has so many new stories to tell
but never got over
the way that other girl drove her
mad crazy all *******
YOU taught me this attitude.

Another pointless, quiet fight.
Another message: “Yeah, you’re right”
Another text reading “goodnight”
Typing out “sleep tight”
as my phone screen turns to white.

I don’t turn off the music,
I do start to panic.

Everything reminds me of us,
The way you think I overuse “we” and “us”
turns to one more thing we used to discuss.
The way you tell me not to fuss
taught me minus and minus equals plus.

You never thought I had it right.
But I still hope you sleep tight.

All this jewellery,
What for can it be?

Earrings you got at birth,
What are they worth?
They are with you
Always

Exchanging friendship bracelets,
The expectations it sets.
Best friends
Forever

Necklaces from family,
Might not know what you see.
They’re still there for you
Truly

Engagement and wedding rings,
More than beautiful things.
Boyfriends, girlfriends—lives entwine,
Becoming husbands, wives in time.

Nothing changed,
Their world hasn’t been rearranged.

The children still go to school.
One of them is dressed uncool.
Mourning, only wearing black,
There is no way back.

Another kid comes in—
laughs and mutters: "**** it! we never win.”

There is a boy in the hallway,
Crying because he doesn’t get a say.

Karol Tadeusz Nawrocki is now,
THEIR president,
THEIR leader,
THEIR ruler,
THEIR FATE.

They lost.

They heard Magdalena Agnieszka Biejat—
her name sadly couldn’t make it.

Rafał Kazimierz Trzaskowski?
another face on the losing ballot.

PiS won,
but at what cost?
A corridor of silent tears.
A playground where laughter dies.
A future stolen from poor kids.

I wish I could quit thinking about norms,
There’s a rainbow after all storms.
The ones in our minds too I guess,
I just wish I would think about this less.

Because really, everything is unfair,
So who cares about my short hair?
And of course it’ll grow back,
Yet it forever leaves a crack.

A crack in my heart and my head,
I can’t even believe what I’ve said.
They want the hair to be long,
All I feel is just, that this is wrong.

I want the red not the blue key,
I don’t think that’s hard to see.
So it won’t be cut once again,
But will that be the rainbow or the rain?

'Cause I shall look in the mirror,
That won’t make anything clearer.
And I will feel sad looking there,
My hair will be too long to bear.

I will look at photos of me now,
I’ll probably wonder why and how.
Might say that it was a mistake,
They’ll never see if it’s true or fake.

She was just seven,
She really wanted to go to heaven,
Dreamed of being free,
Loved the idea of there being a "we".
They told her what she can’t wear,
They told her she has to put up her hair.

She was just thirteen,
Staring at glowing screen.
They told her she’ll distract the boys,
They told her she doesn’t have a choice,
At the time she didn’t realise she didn’t have a voice.

She was just fifteen,
Haunted by all the things she’d heard and seen.
Haunted by all of her thoughts,
She just didn’t yet know how to connect the dots.
And they just told her that he was being mean,
They told her that she was the one making a scene.

Now she’s twenty one,
Realised that freedom isn’t always that much fun.
She found out the game’s not fair,
They’ll always paint her with despair.
And that might be okay,
She can always just call it a day.
This caused her to believe,
That there are a lot of things she can achieve.

But she will never win,
They will always say she committed a sin.
She is doing well,
doesn’t care what the whispers tell,
even if she’ll go to hell.
Because that’s the one place they said wasn’t cool,
So maybe she’s the fool,
And heaven is the place that’s not cool.

If she knows that they’re dumb,
Why is she so numb?
She doesn’t know how to feel,
Is all of this even real?

Numbers are something I used to adore,

They never changed—always the same.

I loved how they opened this door—

To a world with nothing being tame.

I liked being organised, in perfect rows,

Everything right, it had to be clear.

But now I know that it comes and goes,

And numbers can whisper what I fear.

They ARE everywhere—I used to smile,

Counting stars or tiles or days.

But now each digit feels like trial,

Measuring me in all these ways.

There are too many numbers in my mind,

Each thought a sum and each move a test.

Even my body is redefined,

By math that doesn’t let me rest.

I calculate all the words I say,

Their weight and worth, what they cost me.

I never thought I’d feel THIS way...

But numbers tell me who to be.