The little kids we used to be,
still play like the kids we were,
but now it’s graveyards instead of a playground.
Instead of dress-up costumes,
it’s makeup lathered to our faces,
we must be like those perfect pictures in magazines.
We play boyfriends and girlfriends instead of hopscotch,
anorexia instead of basketball.
Instead of storybooks, it’s facebook posts telling us
we don’t deserve to live.
We used to wear those colorful sillybandz,
and trade them with each other,
but now it’s scars from a razor
we wish we could take off.
It was always begging for seconds of ice cream,
but now it’s sneaking away to throw up the
little amount of food they make you eat.
Instead of staring at a summer campfire
waiting to roast marshmallows,
we stare at the fire waiting to burn ourselves.
Instead of angry first graders getting into a fistfight,
the anger now directs the punch to ourselves.
We used to sneak Halloween candy,
trying to stuff ourselves,
but now you sneak pills,
trying to overdose and hoping for death.
We used to play so freely,
we thought it’d always be like that.
But now we run among graveyards,
the bones of the ones we left behind
clutter the passages.
And we’re still children playing games
with the worlds, but the stakes are higher,
we wonder if we’ll make it.
It’s just a roll of the dice on this graveyard
playground.