It’s a feeling you can’t explain
A yearning to break out of here
To get out of the silence
It reflects in his eyes,
The murmur that echoes behind you;
your bones are grinding together

The anger after people won’t take you seriously
I could be lying
We wouldn't want to ruin his reputation
it's all about him

It’s all about his future
Never mine

At fourteen.
My childhood was still with me
But he killed it
Reality shattered
An entire future, gone

But it’s about his future
It was just one moment of weakness
But in the aftermath
All of my weaknesses
And all of my pain
is unimportant.

Think about his future...

Andrew W.
1-27-20

Sometimes I have wished
The world was safe
That we didn’t wake up and wonder
Is this the day that is the last
Is this the beginning of the end

If the time we spend here
Could be easier
If the fight wasn’t all around me
And knocking around in our heads
We want to believe in our future

We’re so worried about losing our chance
What if our one chance passes us by
What if we never get the chance to be as great as everyone wants us to

What if?

It’s all about who people want us to be
We are not your clones.
I will not be like you
Because I can see the outcomes of your failures

You think that because
I am not a lawyer
Or a doctor
Or a CEO
I am not worth anything?

You wished for a better future.
We will be the ones to make it.

Not by obedience,
But with confrontation.

Andrew W.
1-26-20

I see the whites of your eyes
Through the blur of my tears
I feel your hand wrapped around my throat
As you pull up my shirt
I feel my heart stop as you hold both my ankles
I see the pink and yellow sky
Fading to dusk
I feel the cold shudder of fear run
Throughout my body
As you wrap the hem of my shirt over my eyes
And your fingernails dig into my kneck
I feel the rush of panic as you pin me down onto the sand
Making your way throughout my body
The one that I never wanted you near

All those times I told you no
They meant nothing to you
As you held me under
My head in the surf
And the salt burning in my eyes
And I couldn’t scream
When you ran your hands down my body
And I choked on the sand
And I didn’t tell anyone
Why would they believe me
When even I didn’t believe myself.

It wasn’t what I was wearing
It wasn’t what I was doing
It wasn’t who I am
You wanted control and you took it from me
You took my autonomy
I can’t forget it
But I can’t remember it
It’s everywhere and in everything
You took my passions from me
You took my time
You took my energy
And you took my will to live

And I had no idea
I shoved it so far down
I didn’t even know
I didn’t know what was torturing me
I don’t know myself

Tell me
What is worse
Going insane for no apparent reason
Or knowing how people have hurt me
I can’t escape the torture
It’s always there
Replaying in my mind
It’s like I’m always drowning
I’m back where I was on June 6th

Andrew W.
1-26-20

I thought I was safe
I thought I was protected
I thought I was  strong
I thought I was capable
I thought that no one could hurt me more than I’d already been hurt
But I was wrong

“Don’t fight it”
They said
“Look at the ******”
They said
“SHE’s crying”
They said

But even after
The world said,
“You asked for it”
And
“What did you expect”
Because
“You didn’t fight them off”

Everything you said
Made me lose more than I had already lost

I was never safe
I was never protected
I was never strong
I was never capable
Because everything
I did
Was wrong.

Andrew W.
1-26-20

Isn't it funny
How the human mind
Needs its own concept of time

How our age can be simplified into numbers
Our entire experience divided by the hands of a clock
All of us separated by the title of our generations
How our seconds can be a shield
And yet still a barricade

Our perception devalued
And our stories erased

“They’re only teenagers”
“They don’t know”

But in an instant
We will find the path
You had never seen
and you will never know.

Andrew W.
1-26-20

Life isn’t easy
I have always known that
Death isn’t the only option
Even I know that
I never thought I would have to question it
Whether to live and so to die
It’s easy to die but yet so hard
How will I know death is the better option
life is torture.
no one knows
what comes next?
It’s the crisis of conscience
The last song before intermission
The big bang before the second act
I’m in the turmoil of the storm
I know where I am
I can never stop it
It’s true,
the chaos always comes in the first act
what comes next?
That’s a gamble I’m not
willing to take
Not yet.
I’m wounded
But these scars will heal
and this.
This is my second act.

Andrew W.
1-17-20

Then the rain fell from the sky'
While the winds tore
Bringing their uproar

So the other birds fly by
Thinking they knew why
The rain goes Tat Tat Tat

As the seasons washed by
The waves rose upon the shore
In the horrible War
And there he sat
Searching for glee
For where would he flee
If not for the twisty tree
When the rain went Tat Tat Tat

But perched in that twisty branched tree
The wise bird did stay
And so When the wind does blow
He will sit in the old willow
Until the rain turns into snow

Thinking,
When will the others know
What peace does lie
Where the old willows do grow?

For who could say
What the wise bird may
When the rain went Tat Tat Tat

Andrew W.
5-16-19