I think we ruin children by telling them
Crying is bad
When crying is being vulnerable
An expression of pain so natural
So they grow up to be ashamed of emotions

I think we ruin children by telling them
They have to become someone
When being themselves is already being someone
So they grow up wanting to be someone they are not

I think we ruin children by telling them
Disobeying the rules is inexcusable
When sometimes breaking the rules,
Is freeing one’s self from the expectations of others
So they grow up to feel insecure in the face of uncertainty

I think we ruin children by telling them
Monsters are supernatural creatures
When monsters can also take form in humans
Who exploit, manipulate and trample on others
So they grow up unable to confront even their own monsters
For how could something so unimaginable take form in themselves?

I think we ruin children by telling them
Punishment is discipline
Spanking, verbal fear to shut them up good and easy
When there is a thing called gentle discipline
One that requires less pain and more understanding
So they grow up to become aggressors
Believing they are heroes who save others from disorder

I think we ruin children by telling them
School is the best way to getting around life
Drowning in grades, homeworks and activities just to get by
When experience teaches far more important lessons
School can only teach in words
So they grow up to believing the good life is a tried
And tested pattern and there are no other ways to live

I think we ruin children by telling them
To avoid fears instead of confronting them
When the dark, cockroaches, dogs, can be overcome
So they treat fear as an enemy
Instead of being a friend, a lesson
One that teaches them to be braver, to be stronger

I think we ruin children by telling them
What you wear is what you are
Frills and laces for girls, ties and pants for boys
When anyone can wear just what the **** they want
Clothing is a choice in as much as who they want to be
So they grow up confined by what the crowd is wearing
Fearing any diversion would make them odd

I think we ruin children
By making them believe that success
Comes in fancy clothes, cars, a truckload of money
When happiness is the real mark of a well lived life

I think we ruin children
By telling them being alone is a shameful thing
When the key to understanding one’s self
Is through the painful yet productive solitude
That people so likely shame
So they grow up believing their happiness
Is in other people’s hands

I think we ruin children
By telling them outer strength is the real strength
When there are children who
Cannot lift their own chairs
But have the strongest, bravest hearts
Fighting their way into sad days
Like the heroes that they are

I think we ruin children mostly and importantly
By believing
That they are wrong
That they are too young to understand
When all the while
We could have been wrong
Age makes us not wiser
Just older
And so children lose their capacity to see things brightly
And the biggest chunk of the world’s dreamers are then silenced
By adults who never really believed in the magic of the world
As much as the kids do

So how do we ruin children, really?
By telling them being themselves
Is the least they could ever want
By telling children
That being who they are will never be right

We grow up believing that the magic stays. But it never really does. Experience skins us, bares us open. To a reality that is far from what we want ourselves. As children we were blank canvasses. Time went on and so did life bring so many colors to that canvass. Sometimes bright, sometimes dark. Filling the white, pure spaces as each day we learn to fear, to hope , to love and to desire. But we also lose our ability to just go back to that blank slate. Where everything is clearer, unclouded. And we just think that the world is full of it, when all along we are just full of it.

I'd like to know the art of just being that empty canvass again. To learn and to unlearn every color that the world has given me. To be thrown into an absolute mess but still go back to where I came from.

I wish I could just
Crawl out of my skin
I hate the body
I'm trapped within
The worst feeling
Is hating yourself
It's much easier
To be hated by someone else
Because you can escape
Glares and gossip
But self hatred
There's no stopping
I'm trapped inside
A cage of despair
I'm a freak
At which everyone stares
It really is
Just all in my head
Either way
I'd rather be dead