Kind, Kind, Kind.
Kind to the people,
Kind to the world,
Kind to anyone but yourself.

Stuck in a passageway, never in a room,
Never with someone who can understand you.
A glimpse of light, of you being truthful,
And then the door closes, you’re left behind again.

Do you know them?
Do they know you?
Would they bother, would they care?
If they really knew who you were?

Your voice is an echo, there’s no sound,
Nothing of yours, are these even your thoughts?
Trying is hard, fearing what you are,
They’ll know one day, they’ll be told by the scars.

You’re kind aren’t you?
Kind, kind, kind.
Kind to the people,
Kind to the world,
Kind to anyone but the ones who matter.

You have nothing, you are nothing.
Empty eyes, empty heard.
What good is your love,
When you can’t even love.

You are so wise aren’t you?
Your words are never wrong,
You know the world and they don’t,
Isn’t that your whole thing, isn’t that who you are?

Stuck in a passageway, never in a room,
You only fit in, when you’re mute,
It’s okay, It’s fine.
You’ll try when the time’s right.

What regrets, what meanings?
Aren’t you just deceiving yourself with what’s not true?
I hope the dead cannot see the world,
I hope she cannot see what you’ve become.

You can’t bother trying,
So why want it at all?
What point are you trying to make?
Too afraid, too tired?
You didn’t even try.

Kind, kind, kind
Kind to the people,
Kind to the world,
Kind to anyone but the one who knows you.

Surrounded by everyone, yet I remain unseen,
Heard by no one, invisible.
Amid the din of laughter, my words dissolve,
Unacknowledged, stripped of dignity.
Each silence carves away my sense of worth.

You can talk, yell, scream into the void,
But no one lifts a finger to help you.
You yell into valleys and plains—silence echoes back.
  
Part of a group, a long-sought pack,
Yet every effort feels like a mountain to climb.
I hear the sneers of those who should be close,
Not friends—just echoes of mockery,
Or the relentless chatter that drowns me out.
  
Nothing else, just the pain of being unseen.
  
The quiet swells and I fade, can they even see me?
If they don't see me, how can they care?
In this ever-growing silence, can I sustain myself?


Everyone seems amazing. Are they?
They wear smiles like masks—
Bright and polished, yet brittle beneath.
Perhaps beneath, a tide of hatred flows.
Do they hide it, or are you simply blind?  

Their perfection casts my flaws in sharper relief.
In this cold reality, a truth unfolds—
You will never succeed, your dreams a distant mirage.
The silence shapes you into something terrible,
A reflection you barely recognize.  

And yet?


Their silence shapes me into what I fear most
A shadow of my dream, do I even exist if I remain unseen?


I have never sought to end my life—
Such actions feel beneath me.
But pride alone cannot drown this silence.
Am I less? Am I saner than those who do?
My quiet misery matters to me.

Alive, yet unseen—does my life matter
If no one knows me?
I shine brightly, yet I am engulfed in shadows.
Am I really alive if only I can know me?

My mental health is perfect.
I am the happiest among them.
Am I? Can happiness survive in this silence?
Have I truly ever been happy?

I deserve understanding, yet it slips away—
No validation, no dignity.
Am I destined for loneliness forever?
Have I invited this loneliness again?  

From nothing to new nothing,
Have I truly escaped the hell I knew?


Alongside the pain, pride swells
A deadly war for my broken soul


You tell yourself you’re a wonderful person,  
but you don’t believe it.
You claim to be helpful, kind, cheerful.
You vowed to yourself that you would be—
A beacon for others yet lost in your own shadow.

You stumble under the weight of your own needs.
Every effort to be virtuous feels futile,
Not enough to save your soul.
A mirror reveals cracks you refuse to mend.
Shame coils around you, a shadow you cannot escape.


Even in the eternal night of my broken self, hope flickers
A struggling spark, lost in the dark expanse


Despite the darkness something burns
A dream that you long to watch grow
A dream that you long to nurture and care for
But through the broken glass, my vision distorts
Fragile unrecognizable unable to see its beauty

Shards shatter jagged and sharp
Unnoticed, unwhole, unseen
Is my suffering deserved?
Have I caused my pain?


Self loathing cannot mask the pride that swells
Their eternal war is still not louder than the dreadful silence


I know I am destined for more than dirt or ****,
Yet all I see are my shortcomings.
The silence shapes me into what I fear most
A shadow of the person I long to become.
I am nothing, noise in the background.
Were you meant to be important?
  
Actions speak louder than words, yet I stand still,
My voice lost in the roar of those who hate me—
Or worse, those who never even see me.

I am doomed to live in my quiet suffering
shattered and unseen, drowning in the suffocating silence

Something I never had, freedom
Friends that had my back, leave them
Tears fill my eyebags, useless feeling
                                                         ­                                                    Weak
Pathetic you say,
                                     Your daughter, laugh as you may.

I like a guy, unwanted attention
Time passes by, haunted by tension
Ask for reasons why, say its affection
                                                       ­                                                      Narcissistic
Selfish I’m told,
                                    I’m seventeen, a sheep with no wool.

A comfort pillow, slowly turning hot
The wilting willow, vines tight as knots
Choking below, self made blood clots
                                                           ­                                                  Ignorant

Egocentric you declare,
                                                      Li­fe just started, and life’s not fair.

Blood’s spilling, considered infraction
Heart chilling, fading reaction
Head drilling, thoughts in redaction
                                                       ­                                                      Failure
I’m to blame,
                              Your knife in my hand, inching closer to my vein.

-Naiomi Crowell

When rights are taken,
people stand alone.
The world moves around them,
but they are outside,
unseen, unheard.

Dignity crumbles.
Inclusion becomes a distant idea,
participation a closed door.
They are left with nothing but silence,
a void where their voice should be.

Education, healthcare, justice—
these are not gifts,
they are foundations.
Without them,
the ground gives way.

Isolation grows,
not just in the mind,
but in the spaces between people.
It spreads,
weakening the ties that hold society together.

They are here,
but they are not.
Their absence is felt,
but not acknowledged.
The system turns,
blind to the cracks it creates.

How long can this last?
How many must stand alone
before the world notices,
before it stops,
and begins to rebuild?

my grudges relish
the taste of isolation;
bitter by the day.

Kicked down.
Cold floor. Breath thinner than the air.
Get up.
Hands reach, no grip.
Alone, lost again.
Crying echoes back to silence.
Floods of tears—
no ark, no warmth, just noise.

Thrown down.
Fallen,
too many times.
Get up, try again.
But the hands,
they never pull me up.
Just flickers of light—
brief, empty.
Alone. Lost.
I shout, but no one hears.
A flood of tears,
they turn their backs.
Flee.
Craving warmth,
but it's just cold silence.

Craving safety, security.
A place to breathe.
But the love that’s offered,
it’s conditional.
Harsh words.
Poking, pain,
no softness.
Empty arms,
no warmth.
Alone again,
lost in the night.
I’m down here,
on the cold floor.
Don’t leave me here—
please.
Not again.
Afraid.
Empty.

A burden.
A disappointment.
That’s all I am.
A ghost, never seen,
only felt.
I love, yet all I get is hate.
Thrown back at me,
cold, sharp.
No warmth for the lost,
just more silence.
Another night on the floor,
cold,
alone.

The darkness is heavy.
I can’t rise.
Maybe this is where I belong,
buried beneath the weight.
The coldness, the grime.
No line thrown.
Alone, I sink deeper.
This feels like home—
empty, silent,
a place no one calls their own.
Another night,
heart breaking,
again.

I’m sorry.
For whatever I’ve done,
to push you away.
I can't believe it turned out like this.
Is this the end?
Another night,
more tears,
more silence.
I only wanted a place,
to belong,
to feel seen.
But I guess that’s too much to ask.

All the words
that never left my mouth
creep through my veins
filling the hollows of my mind
and my lungs with stone
encasing the very essence of me
in lead

weighing me down
as the murky depths
of a world
that never knew
I was drowning
beckons

On days like this, I am reminded of a feeling once foreign to me
A concept I’d only caught from books and from movies.
One that crushes yet contains no mass
That cripples heart and brain alike yet bears no blade.

It is the bitter, biting brutality of winter with no fire nearby to curl up to
Nipping at the heart and leaving it crisp with melancholy.
It is a plague which I seem to have regretfully caught
Despite having recently become so very aware of how to use its cure.

The girl across the hall opens her door and produces a weary, sigh with her exit
Perhaps a plea for an ear to listen or another to exist with.
She passes by my open doorway silently, contradicting herself
Our pleas for a social volley cast together into the blizzard.

I imagine she feels that same apprehension; hesitation
Or perhaps she had something to do.
The simple smile of another among the thousands here
Would be an ember of joy sufficient to set my hearth alight for days.

I crave that warmth like few things I have craved before
So close by, yet more scarce than it’s ever been.
Chatter was once my sun, and I basking endlessly below
How I yearn for summer in this raging storm.