Cross your legs, bow your head,
laugh softly, muffle your tears.
Occupy as little space as you can.

Don't look into their eyes,
they may see the fire blazing there.
Fires beckon to be extinguished.

Sit silently on this pedestal,
be the shiniest offering you can be.
The seller doesn't profit from bruised peaches.

Be the object of my desire,
here's a mold you must fit in.
Walking in the middle may confuse us.

You are the creator of the world,
but we will distract you with petty battles.
So you never realize you can win wars.

Hold your breath when you're scared,
don't move at all while I touch you.
Your shyness is your beauty.

Dressed in your bridal finery upon death,
frozen in the only identity that counts.
You will be perfectly still, finally perfect.

Little lamb, little lamb.
Run along little lamb.
Just try to remember that
life is a ******* sham.
It honestly is quite a shame,
how you continue to persist
and take part in their game.

The cards were marked from the start,
yet you still innocently play along,
getting ****** over by men with no heart.
In this story, You're the main part!
so go **** the men with souls of stone,
hone your weapon, make it your own,
and tear them apart, skin from bone.

Room and pillar
Let me be your guiding shaft
Atmospheric pressure
Let me be your natural draft

Atticus Finch
Let me be your inner last laugh
Cold determiner
Let me be your unsuspecting half

The sign in the window says
Closed until the light of day

Broken bone
Let me be your sling and marrow
Agitated Polaire
Let me be your tight-laced narrow

Confounded Plath
Let me be your children's tomorrow
Germ warfare
Let me be your biological sorrow

The word on the street is
Nothing's gonna change until the light of day

Open minefield
Let me be your measured step
***** mother
Let me be your usual suspect

Unwanted child
Let me be the tears when you last wept
Unwanted immigrant
Let me be the ground where you last slept

The writing on the wall signals
Critical times until the light of day

lumière du jour
Chérie

Love and confusion confounding the illusion of trust in a systematic regime which they deny ever existed but constantly promise to improve upon. The hat's shape and color may change, but our inability to exchange their deranged platforms for a stabler form of expression exposes our disillusion with dispossession and our embracing being complacent in the face of our rulers' all-encompassing corruption.

Went all these years without having an opinion worth sharing
Why would it change now?
To speak up is to be shut up
And to stand out is to be cut down.

Let me take a page out of the book that gave you every look you passed me when I went about my life the way that I was taught

If you had only gone as far as lit my cigarette and smiled I would have given up the world for you and your trials

When you find your rhythm let me know, but I feel that you were never searching for truths not in your bestseller book

I’m sitting here still waiting for a turn to speak, but you’ve stuffed your ears with amnesia of history; it makes you free

I’m here looking at the sky; it’s my way to feel free for a bit of time, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, unlike yours

We were never in line, and it’s all fine, until you cup my mouth with all the force you gained from never having to think twice

Now let me take a lie out of your book and make it choke on all the tears that could have drowned your pages and made you realize

Shy and soft-spoken though I might be, there are ways to talk without speaking a single word and it’s worth a thousand photographs

"Make yourself small
become invisible
until you are needed
don't take up space
starve yourself so that we find you appealing
cover and smear away
at your blemishes"
is the unspoken rule

Our bodies are not pitstops
for ravenous men
this flesh
these limbs
this ***** is a gift
and can be taken away,
just as it can be given

When they want you
docile and unassuming
seen but not heard
climb through the bars
of the prison you built
to please others
and make something of yourself
for in you alone, lies the power.
Esther L. Krenzin