On my tongue rests a particular smog
One that scorches my throat
Pollutes my emotions.

I did not willingly inhale
This was forced upon me.

But I will not open my mouth
I will not let the clouds escape
I will let the smoke fall into my lungs
Keeping my from breathing properly.

Have you ever noticed the stutter in my words or the way I can’t control my paranoia? My spiteful eyes and cracked lips still forced into a smile, trying to prove everyone that I’m a fighter. No one ever bothered to hold me close, to tell me it’s okay to not be fine. So I run through my life as if it’s a battlefield, hoping that one day I can live and not just survive.

I was twenty,
He was seventy,
He came,
He saw me,
He paid in full,
This ugly bull,
We got married.
My parents had many mouths to feed,
I was the scapegoat.
I was forced,
I was coerced,
Into marriage,my youth in bloom,
A lifetime of doom.

Blank faces walk past me
A visual elegy
In the morning past the city streets
Yet everyone persists so dimly
The overcast retracts the colour from my sight
As if it is midnight
And traces, shapes of phases
My shoelaces untangle themselves and I fall
Flat

The phasing interrupts my morning stroll
Predators on the prowl
Clad in amber
Stalking through the morning night mass
Hearts locked, empty locket
Deafening the peace in its trail
Chasing my tail and once I'm had
It detains me, immobilises me, I am
Caught

The city of black and white
Has no time for shades of grey
And yet the vivid colours bond
But yet I tripped
And in the black and white streets
I was trapped in technicolor

In life we'll be forced to do things
          
              things that hurt us
  
        that tear us apart,
                
                                that make us feel empty.

We will be placed in an environment

          where we hate ourselves
  
      where we will be put down,

                                    harassed.

Life doesn't give us lemons
      
                        it gives us hateful words
  
           that we sculpt inside out head
  
                   and spit out onto people like
  
             dirt.

It's true when they say life isn't fair

                it takes us for a nice ride

then while we're sleeping in the backseat,
        
                          not paying attention

it goes over a road bump without warning us

                  and we're jolted out of place

         put out of our space  

               as our world comes crashing down

and you wonder why you were never warned.

Tell me how you can stand there and tease a kid

                                      for wearing glasses

                or liking superman

      or not exactly 'fitting in' with a certain

  group or clic.

In life we will be forced to do things

                like move over in the hallway

because the cool kids take up it's entirety

          or keep our mouth shut about bullies

    because the teachers call it 'child's play'

In life we will all scurry around

                           on hands and knees

          and no one will offer a hand

                   they would much rather tease.

I'm not exaggerating when I say

         this life isn't for me.