When you’re gone
I can’t breathe
And I think
Help me
Come back, please.

When you’re gone
I crave your arms around me
Even though they’ve never been mine
And I think
Come here.
Don’t leave me, please.

Come back.
I miss you.

But when you’re here
I miss you even more
Because I can never have you

she tells you it’ll all blow over
but the fact that it hasn’t
is why you’re here in the first place
everything will be okay
then why hasn’t it gotten that way yet
the scars on your arms
are proof

you laugh
but the darkness is always lurking
somewhere in the deepest corners
of your heart

the purple bags under her eyes
have to tell you something

the way her sad eyes have sunken in

the way her hair is always in knots

the way she has nearly stopped eating

the melancholy way she sings

the way she is always wearing sweats in eighty degree weather

how she hides behind a hood

and yet people don’t notice
how devastatingly beautiful she is
they don’t notice the way she laughs
how far and few between they are
and when she smiles
it seems she hasn’t smiled in decades
how sometimes she walks into school with
black streaks down her face
or red welts and a dark bruise on her cheek

because you don’t bother to notice
you’re so caught up in the future
and smiles
and happiness
you don’t notice the things happening around you
someone is crumbling
someone is shattering
someone is hiding behind a smile
someone is cutting their wrists
they’re suffering
they’re dying

how is it that you can’t see it?

in today’s time and age
young women and girls are oppressed
by men
who can’t control their urges
in their early lives
they are taught to obey
to obey their parents
and to obey men
we are taught to
stay quiet

their fire
is stomped out
as soon as possible
and later in life
when a drunk man at a party
or a crazy man at a bar
or any person along those lines
is using them
as
a
toy
and touching them in ways
they
don’t
want

they won’t say no
because they have been taught
to be obedient
and to stay quiet

school teachers
parents
adults
most people
they tell us to be ourselves
but then
they discriminate against all of us

if two best friends
of the same *** embrace
children and teens
will say
“that’s gay”
and what if it is?

I thought we were supposed to be ourselves

if someone does something weird
crazy
stupid
it’s
“*******”
do you know how rude this is
to people
who can’t help that they were born
with extra needs?

if someone has tattoos
they may not get a job
because something important to them
has been etched into their skin permanently
and you don’t have the capacity to understand it

if someone is kind or talented or smart
you are immediately intimidated
because you can’t handle it if someone
is better than you
well let me tell you this:
there will ALWAYS
be someone better
than
you

if a woman is strong
divorced
or making it on her own
you make up rumors about them
to bring them down
because you think they need a man
to support them

if a young girl is confident
defiant
persevering
you squash her spirit
so she won’t make it
so she can’t say no

if she is curvy
you tell her to lose weight
but if she’s skinny
she needs to fill out

if they’re dark
they can’t be trusted
and will be judged
just because of
the color of their skin



This is all
Bull
****

these people are no different than you
and yet you push them down

and all the while
you’ve been telling the population
to be themselves.