It sticks to the back of my throat
like peanut butter
It sits back there like a frog
and I croak croak croak,
but it never escapes my quivering lips
It never leaves me
It never makes itself known
But it hopes like every little insecurity I've ever owned
that you will see it one day
accept it one day
read bedtime stories to it
feed it food from your dinner table
cloth it as it wants to be clothed
support it like you are the keystone
to my door
to the world, I deserve to belong in
yet I still only manage to look at it
from the blurry red plexiglass windows

I hear voices from beyond it
Be brave.
Be brave.
It gets better
little one.

But when I look out that window
I hear the depressions and suppressions of a people
gunshots and violence
and somewhere off in the distance
I hear the singing laughter and joy

Be brave
Be brave
little one

but they are as far as my voice is trapped and away from me
and as tangible as the frog in my throat
Stuck in Pandora's box
with a million others just like me.