Lee - Hello Poetry

Lee 1d

She wore hunger like a shadow
that whispered of what was not there—
but she held it,
her shoulders
never quite bending.
She wrapped us close,
tightened the circle,
and in the quiet of those moments,
taught us that survival could taste like sweetness
even when the world was a desert.
Four children,
each carrying the mark of a different man,
but none of us carried more
than the weight of her love.
She danced in the dark,
and we followed,
not knowing
how deep the cracks in her skin went—
how her bones carried the scars
of battles fought with fists,
words that bruised in silence,
love that was both a weapon and a shield.
And when the lights went out,
she didn’t let us see the dark.
She made it a game,
the flicker of candles
casting ghosts that we could laugh with,
ice cream sundaes dripping with hope
where there should have been tears.
Her hands, though worn and trembling,
made something out of nothing—
something we could hold onto
when there was nothing else to grasp.
She was a storm in a house of glass,
crashing, breaking,
but never surrendering.
Her pain was the silent kind,
the kind you could taste in the air,
but still, she loved
with the fierceness of a world
she thought would swallow her whole.
And we never saw the weight of her wings—
the way they were clipped,
but still, she flew.
She said, Forgive me,
but how could we?
We only saw the strength
in the way she kept walking,
kept trying,
even when her footsteps echoed
against walls that never stopped whispering
of things she could never forget.
She wasn’t broken.
She was the quiet hum
of a river running
beneath everything—
underground, unseen,
but always moving.
She didn’t need forgiveness.
She needed us to see her,
not as a woman bent by the weight
of the world she couldn’t control,
but as the one who held us all
and made sure we breathed,
even when she couldn’t

I hope to be capable of the love in my mom's heart, she is truly my hero, good bad or indifferent.

Lee 1d

Picture Perfect

Stand up straight, don’t make a face,
Fix your collar—know your place.
Hands behaved, don’t drag your feet,
A perfect child, so small, so neat.
Smile wide, let no one see,
The part of you that isn’t free.
A family framed, so proud, so tall,
A happy home—or so they call.
Green velour, a little grin,
Hiding everything within.
A flash, a snap, a moment caught,
A memory you never sought.
They see love, they see grace,
They never saw the other face.
The one that flinched, the one that knew,
What happened right before the view.
So up it hung, so big, so bright,
A picture bathed in perfect light.
And there you are, still frozen in time,
Smiling like you’re doing fine.

The last family photo we took, i was about 7, i was wearing a green velour suit, my brothers, my sister, my step dad, my mom and new baby brother. right before the photo i got in trouble, i was probably being uncooperative or didnt want to smile idk, but i got handled, and then right before the photo, i "fixed my face" and they got the photo, that photo hung in our house, every time i see it to this day, i see how i was crying, i see how I'm barely holding it together and i see how we all look so happy and well behaved but we were really just under control.

Lee 1d

What We Remember

I. The First Lesson

It was just a few blocks home,
but my legs burned like I had run forever.
Bare feet on pavement, breath caught in my throat,
too afraid to scream, too confused to cry.
We were just playing a game.
Worms throwing bombs at each other,
until he turned, and I was the game instead.
Pinned. Trapped. Hands moving where I hadn’t given permission,
lips pressing down while I twisted away.
I didn’t even like boys yet.
Didn’t understand what his body was doing,
why his hands wouldn’t stop,
why my voice—
my small, shaking, pleading voice—
meant nothing.
I ran.
Told.
Waited for justice.
But the world said it was a misunderstanding.
A boy’s future was too heavy a thing
to be ruined by a girl’s fear.
A piece of paper said he had to stay away—
until it expired.
And that was all.
So I learned.
My body was not mine.
My voice did not matter.
I was just a thing
that could be taken, used,
and forgotten.

II. The Betrayal

She remembers laughter.
A room full of us,
bodies draped over hotel beds,
the heat of youth humming in the air.
She says it was fun,
a wild night,
a story to tell.
She had already walked through the fire.
So to her, this was nothing but a spark.
A chance to get it over with—
shed the weight of innocence,
become someone new.
But I still flinched when a boy touched my hand.
Still froze when lips brushed too close.
I did not want to burn.
I was not ready.
Yet somehow, I was beneath him anyway.
A stranger.
A face I can’t recall,
but a weight I still feel.
And I let it happen.
I let myself disappear into it.
I let the world’s lesson ring in my ears—
You are nothing but what they take from you.
And that night, he took everything.
Later, my best friend would smile,
say, "We had a blast, didn’t we?"
And I would smile back,
because the truth was mine alone.
Because the truth was,
I scrubbed my skin raw that night.
Because the truth was,
I cried until I forgot what I was crying for.
Because the truth was,
I had betrayed myself.
And no one even noticed.

I always thought the night i lost my virginity was the night i lost myself, but the truth is that night just re-confirmed that i had already lost myself years before.

Lee 1d

Kameko

She moves like a shadow,
quick as a thought,
but I call her Kameko—
a stillness I’ve always sought
in a world that asks her to rush.
Meko, she knows herself
in the way she watches me,
in the soft tilt of her head
that holds a thousand words.
I hear her before she speaks—
a glance, a shift in her paws,
and in that silence,
she is everything.
To them, she is just a dog—
a creature of instinct and need.
But to me,
she is the sun,
a spark that burns quietly,
a love that doesn’t demand
but fills every corner of me.
In her gaze,
I see the world we’ve built,
where she doesn’t need to be anything
but herself—
and I love her for it,
for the way she fits into spaces
that weren’t meant for anyone.
She wears no leash inside,
no collar but the weight of her love—
and here, she’s everything we need,
as steady as the earth beneath her paws,
as wild as the wind she chases

I got My Shiba Inu as a gift from friend, i was getting out of the military and spiraling with what would come next. Everything i knew was changing and i was scared. Then i was gifted my dream dog, she grounded me and continues to ground me, she is spicy and bold and independent. I named her Kameko because she always moved so fast, I hoped it would will her to slow down, instead its a constant reminder she was never meant to be slow.

Lee 2d

Hate is My Birthright

I was born from war.
Not just one, but many.
Bloodlines braided in battle,
Mohawk steel, Black iron,
warriors who stood their ground
and those who had it ripped from beneath them.
Survivors. Rebels. Ghosts.
Their voices live in my bones.
I should have been raised to burn,
to sharpen my edges and let nothing in.
Hate was carved into my inheritance,
left in the ashes of broken treaties,
buried in the fields where my ancestors bled,
spat in the faces of those who dared to stand tall.
My grandmother still holds the echoes,
reflected in her eyes,
She tells me not to trust,
tells me history does not forget.
And she is not wrong.
But history also does not forgive.
And I—
I am caught between the teeth of it,
too much of everything,
not enough of anything,
a contradiction that no one wants to claim.
They say things in front of me they wouldn’t dare
if my skin were darker,
if my hair curled tighter,
if my cheekbones cut sharper,
if my blood wasn’t always on trial.
Too red to be Black.
Too Black to be red.
Too much. Never enough.
Hate should be my birthright.
A blade I was meant to wield,
a fire I was meant to stoke,
but I was born reaching,
grasping for something heavier than rage,
something softer than war.
Because hate is easy.
And I have never been given the luxury of ease.
I was meant to inherit fire.
Instead, I choose to walk through it.

clicking a box on an application or having to explain my heritage has always made me feel like i was choosing the best parts of myself or comparing the worst. Too often the call came from inside the house but all it did was show me that perseverance is as much a choice as hate and anger.

Lee 2d

Slave Clothes

I take her collar off at the door
We don’t wear slave clothes in this house,
not even her—
no collar, no leash,
not while we’re inside these walls.
Not in the place where we breathe easy,
where the weight of the world can’t follow us in.
I call them “slave clothes,”
but it’s not just the collar around her neck—
it’s the weight we leave at the door,
the pressures we shed,
the expectations that don’t fit
once we step into this space.
In this house,
there’s no pressure to be something else,
no burden of how they see us—
just love,
just peace,
just a place where we can breathe.
She knows it too—
free to run,
free to rest,
free to simply be.
No chains,
no bounds,
no collars to remind her
of a world outside that isn’t as kind.
But outside—
there’s the fence she must stay in,
the collar she must wear,
tags that announce her place in the world.
Yet, when she’s in here—
in this space where she belongs—
she’s comfortable,
she’s free,
she’s safe.
And that’s how we all are here,
free of the weight of the world outside,
free of the pressures that tell us who we should be.
Here, we make the choices.
Here, we live by our own rhythm.
Here, we know that love means freedom,
and freedom means peace.
We don’t wear slave clothes in this house,
because we’ve earned the right
to live without them.
In this space,
we are safe,
we are whole,
and we are loved—

Why do I take her collar off?
We don’t wear slave clothes in this house.

When i have guests over a lot of times when i let the dogs in i take off their collars and put them back on the hook. Each time my company would ask "you take her collar off every time? why?" and it always shocks them when i look at them and say we don't wear slave clothes in this house...

#symbolism #dog #collar #rules #freedom

Lee 2d

First Secure Your Own Mask

In a world that spun too fast,
they whispered the rule—
first, secure your own mask,
but they never learned
how to fit it.
Their hands, frantic,
grasped at ours,
pulling us into their storm,
tightening the straps
until our breath was thin,
until the air was no longer ours.
They saw the clouds,
felt the pressure,
but never saw
how their own lungs were hollow,
how the wind was too cold
for them to breathe.
They never took their own mask,
only ours—
a lie wrapped in love,
strangling us all.
They thought they were saving us,
but their grip was too tight,
their hearts were too heavy,
filling our lungs with their panic.
In trying to protect,
they forgot:
if they couldn't breathe,
they couldn’t help us breathe.
And so, we wore the mask,
pressed too hard against our skin,
the seams never holding,
the air always too thin.
A cycle that turned on repeat,
love, pain, discipline,
each breath an echo
of something broken,
something never fixed.
They tried,
but never understood
that a mask only works
if you wear it first—
only when they breathe
can they save us.
But we stood there,
choking on the same air,
never having the chance
to claim it as our own.

I try to acknowledge the struggles we faced growing up, the traumas we survived, without excusing my parents role, i still credit them for doing what they thought was best in their individual circumstances. I am grateful for my parents, and if they had the resources to fix their masks who knows how different our lives could be

#trauma #child #breathe #deepbreath #oxygen