I've tried
How I've tried
You pretend to know me,
Think you can see through every little lie,
Every little insignificant detail I provided about myself,
Who I was,
How I was

I try
I open my mouth but the words I wanna say
Get stuck
Probably behind these ****-ugly buck teeth of mine
So large as to block and distort
What I wanna say

I tried explaining
But once again the words evade me
Leaving me tongue tied, helpless, blind
OH HOW I'VE TRIED!
Like when I promised I wouldn't cut again
And the next day
I did it anyway
I was guilty as **** but...

I tried explaining
I tried to tell you I had an addiction,
The cigarette of the steel
The LSD of that smooth handle
The speed of that burning sensation in my arm
As it opens up to someone who can't stop himself
He's shaking as he does it, silent, words evade him
Screams evade him
And so too do friends when he fails to say
He TRIED!

You don't think he suffers enough?
You don't think keeping this promise is tough?
My mind is saying NO but only the part I control
And it's a scientific fact that you control
Only a small portion of your brain
It's not always in control
It's no override
It's no easy way out
IT'S NOT EASY

The words he wants to scream
The words he wants to shout
People look at him, disappointed when he says
What he has done,
The sin that is bad habit
Like he can ******* CHOOSE
To be depressed at this ****-awful WORLD
That constantly SUPPRESSES him,
Kicks him into the gutter
And proceeds to STOMP HIM
INTO THE MOTHER ******* DIRT
LAUGHING
MOCKING
TELLING HIM HE'S WORTHLESS
SO HE HEARS IT IN EVERY TINY LITTLE MISTAKE HE MAKES
"Oh, you didn't do this right" translates to
"YOU'RE NOT RIGHT! YOU'RE WRONG! SO ******* WRONG!"
"Can you please do this again" becomes
"YOU ****** UP MAJOR, SON, AND I'M DISAPPOINTED!"

If there's one thing I hate it's causing disappointment
If there's one thing I hate it's frowns
It's anger
It's hostility when all I ever tried to do
WAS TO MAKE YOU ******* SMILE!

I told you I tried
I tried so ******* hard
I broke my back for you
I took twice the load
I never told anyone else
Because nobody else would care

All they ever did was stomp me into the gutter
And so I turned to the one thing that gave me pleasure
This ****** addiction
Where self-harm is okay
Everyone else harms me
So surely it's okay to do it to myself

When I was seven years old, I found a body on the beach. It lay their, skin bloated and lips purple. I called to my mother and she took me away and told me not to look.

I asked her why the man washed up on our beach. It seemed as though she didn’t want to tell me. She put me on her lap and said,
“This man was very sad and lonely. He had no place to call home and no love of his own so he jumped off the bridge”. At the time I couldn’t grasp the concept of suicide.

Five years later I was crying in my room.

I asked myself why demons are evil, why did they choose to be this way when I eat myself alive if I’ve even remotely hurt another human being. I forgot how to feel.

And when I stayed home from school for a week nobody noticed. Why would they? I was just sick.

I asked myself why the rain had to fall. Why it swamped the Earth and drowned the good. I asked why I was here.

I was a disappointment. As if it wasn’t enough for me to feel as though I was one, I was constantly yelled at by the man who raised me for things I didn’t even do, crimes I didn’t even commit. In eighth grade he screamed at the top of his lungs and got red in the face with his “I GET SAD SOMETIMES TOO BUT YOU DON’T SEE ME CUTTING MY ******* WRISTS!”

There was no reasoning with him. He didn’t understand that there was nothing driving my sadness that was physical. He didn’t understand that sadness can spawn from deep within your soul and make even the sunniest days seem dark and gloomy. He didn’t understand depression. He didn’t understand me.

After the third of fourth time he caught me I blew up.

I asked him why a slap is accepted as discipline and why yelling is considered a form love. I asked him why HIS GOD would make me this way if it were a sin. That’s where his god ****** up.

And I asked why my wounds couldn’t heal with a band-aid and why the sun doesn’t shine on me anymore and why the days grow longer each day. I asked why the birds didn’t sing anymore and why I couldn’t lift myself out of bed in the morning because I felt as though someone sat on my chest. I asked him simple questions.

I asked why it was so easy to break apart razor blades and why he kept the pills in plain sight even when he knew how I was. I asked why nooses were so easy to tie and why he never came to get me when I was still in bed at 6:38 pm.

I asked him why the sound of me puking my guts out wasn’t recognizable from his bedroom. I asked him why he let me do this two myself THREE TIMES already without even maybe CONSIDERING the possibility that there was something wrong. My first trip to the hospital was when they had to PUMP MY STOMACH because of all the pills I swallowed. He kept them in a nice little cabinet in the bathroom with a lock on the door.

He told the doctor he hadn’t seen any sign and she asked WHY THERE WERE CUTS ON MY WRISTS WITHOUT HIM KNOWING.

Simple questions were asked.
“Why are you sad?”
“How long has this gone on for?”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

To this I LAUGHED I LAUGHED AT THEIR QUESTIONS BECAUSE I NEVER BOTHERED WEARING SHORT SLEEVES AND MY FATHER SAW HOW MUCH TYLENOL I WOULD TAKE TO MANAGE THE PAIN AND HE FOUND THE BLADES BUT SIMPLY TOLD ME TO DISCARD OF THEM BUT LITTLE DID HE KNOW THAT THERE WERE MUCH MORE THINGS IN THE HOUSE THAT WERE MUCH SHARPER.

I asked them why the man jumped off the bridge and why that wasn’t an acceptable option anymore.

It's an impulse you can't control,
An action you wanna take back
But let's face facts
You can't delay it
The pain waits patiently,
Tapping away at your consciousness
Regardless of the consequence
And I'll be honest with this
It's almost impossible to stop

Almost

The key word I hang onto with every breath
This is not just a test of strength
But of reality,
Making short work of your sanity
You try to stop it
But it won't have any

I see the kids with mocking laughter
Not knowing that my body awaits disaster
Trying not to cause drama
To kick up a fuss
To set off the bus
Drive it down main street and yell
"Hey look mum no hands".

There's a reason rumour rhymes with tumour
Malignant and fast
If not careful you'll breathe your last
One misplaced cut and your veins start spewing
On the gums with nervousness inside your mouth you start chewing
And deep inside your anger is brewing

Boiling
Broiling
Coiling around your throat
Just to choke you out

That's what my impulse is like
That's what my impulse is about
And sometimes it's hard to resist
When my subconscious persists
That little voice in my head telling me
"You ain't ****!"
"Just another mother-******* chopping board
Slicing
And dicing
The Sunday specials you had stored"

I'm better than this
Experience defines who you are
And I'd rather not be a peeling bandaid,
A walking, talking, bleeding scar
That won't heal!

That stays, never gives up for the wrong reasons!
Searches and lives a life without meaning!

I'd rather just be myself
Not the trash can everyone dumps their **** into
Even when it's full

I want to be safe
Can you say the same?

I remember a time when I felt happy
Waking up everyday was a new adventure
Some people would say things behind my back,
But I didn't care

I just carried on

I would stroll leisurely into the classroom,
Take off my shoes at the door because I picked at them
Sit down at my desk, right at the front because I couldn't focus sitting next to anyone

And just carried on

I would pick my spiky, plastic ball off of the desk I sat at,
Constantly fidget with it, resist the urge to place it in my mouth
And bite off the spikes, feel satisfaction. Sometimes I could resist.
Other times I couldn't, but I didn't care

I just carried on

That was back when I was in Year Four, in a class filled with students
Who, despite not knowing the word ***** would be one anyways
Only admiring me for my intellect, like when I suggested the word Bioluminescence as a favourite word and the teacher thought it wasn't even a word, because surely I was too young to know it?

Somehow, I carried on

Now, looking back on those days I ask myself,
When did my strength fade? The world become grey?
How can someone so innocent, so lonely, so... weak,
Be so strong and resistant?

How did I be me, and manage to carry on?

When nowadays I am constantly suppressed by society,
I can't be me without being called a ******, a loser,
Loner and so ****** up that surely I'm a stoner?

Doesn't matter that I hate drugs, my "friends" do drugs,
Smoke **** and make fun of me because I don't,
That God forbid I'm clean, don't **** with that ****,
Never will and never have, but this means that they can be mean?

How have I carried on, for so long, falling prey to those call me friend
And fade away faster than the light of day whilst vaping it up,
Faded as ****,
When all along I believed I wasn't strong?

I look at them and see no hope, no future
Not for me in that direction, at least
And I've told them time and again
That it's so ******* wrong, that there will come a time when hitting up the **** won't carry you further along anymore

There will be a time when they will fail to carry on

Maybe I still got some of me left in me
There's more on the inside than what the eye can see
Believe in myself, listen to no-one else and honestly?

I truly believe I still have the strength to carry on

I am standing in the spot where my family almost died
Here, in this land
All of life turned gray
Not the temporary gray of a rainy day
Not the gray of a fading photograph
No
The gray like ash
Or the ashes of the fallen
Gray like the plumes of smoke
Billowing out from the gas chambers
Standing in this spot
I feel connected
A pull
A throwback to my roots

I feel so… somber
Like I can see that day
January 27th 1945
My family members
Or what was left
Some of the 6,000 that were left
Staring and wondering
Is this real?
Or
Is this just another delusion brought on by hunger
Or are we free?
They told us we were free back in the day
But no
We walked for 40 years into the hands of a new oppression
Into a stereotype
Into the **** of a joke
Into the law offices and bank teller of the world

Go back a little further
Back into Poland
Before 1945
Think 1944
I know what a needle and ink on skin feels like
But I cannot imagine it by force
Forced away from the laws of my religion
A name, reduced to a number
24601
No
More like A-98288 on a forearm
No
I can feel the burn
In my eyes and in my lungs
Not from the gas and the filth
But from the pain of generations of jews and others labeled as different
As not pure

I feel the pull
The connection
Severed
My grandmothers 14 siblings reduced to 3
Back to 1945
I feel…
Empty
My existence no longer focused on minute by minute survival
I feel…
A flutter
Of anxiety, of pain, of…
Hope…
Brought on by these men in uniform not seated in hate
Hope that we might live
Hope that the end is here!
But not the end that we have prayed for

Fade into color
I am standing in the spot where history almost erased me
And I remember all the years of oppression
And I can see how it continues
And I can see how it needs to change

I am standing in front of my peers
Asking
No
Begging you to see what I see
I am begging for change
I am begging for peace

An open letter to teachers
I love learning
You make think that’s odd considering the blank look I have on my face every lesson
But it’s true
However when you put me in a room of thirty other kids I don’t get along with
Or don’t like learning too
It kinda kills the mood
Whilst learning definitions is important and I understand
You’ll forgive me for looking out of the window for a few minutes before tuning back in
You’re just as bored as me I know
But of course you’ll never let it show
After all
Your class is the most important of them all
Thirty minutes of homework a night at least
I study 6 other subjects
Each of them requiring at least thirty minutes too
That’s three and a half hours of work a night
Plus eight hours of school
That’s a twelve hour work day
So you’ll forgive me for yawning in your class
Afterall I stayed up til 12am the night before doing the work you set me
No of course not
How dare I yawn in your lesson?
That’s right it is incredibly rude
It is my fault I stayed up so late the night before
Doing work that you set me
How dare I?
I apologise

I love learning
But I don’t like sitting in a room of 150 other kids doing an exam
Spending three nights before fitting into my head all that I could cram
So I could have you stand over me and watch me as I write
Or the giant dreaded clock counting down from 100 to 0
Each minute going faster as I struggle to calculate how many times 0 goes into 100
Asking a question that can’t be answered
“You won’t be able to ask questions in real life”
That’s odd because my work place embraces asking questions
On the bottom of every sheet saying ‘ask the manager if you don’t know how to do these jobs’
But that’s not the real world
Part time work is not the real world
Flipping burgers at Maccas is not the real world
But it seems pretty real to me

I love learning
When I was 8 loved to do maths
Triangles and squares and circles it all came naturally
Then you started implying that maths was a boy’s area
That only boys do well and boys can succeed
I lost that love
Took a left turn at maths and English lane
Whether that was the best or worst choice I’ve ever made I’m here now
A poet who can count to 100 in threes languages but can’t make sense of the letter x
What’s it doing there?
Isn’t maths just numbers?
Are English and maths crossing over?
No
X and represents everything and 1 all at once
Just like how the conch symbolises law and order?
No
It’s just a number
A number that needs to be worked out
Ten lines at least to work out x
A million different solutions and trial and error will not be one
It’s the cheat’s way out
The girl’s way out

I love learning
My maths teacher taught me to love maths again
My English teacher taught me English was not just a constellation
My drama teacher taught me drama is so much more than the stage
But maybe this is all too late
Because when I’ve spent my life waiting to fall in love with maths again
My love for maths was lost
My love for learning was lost
My drive is lost
I love learning
But not as much as I used to

When I was five years old and first stepped into a classroom I had lint and skittles and hope stuffed into my pockets. My firsts clutched at them so hard that when they made us shake hands with one another I extended a rainbow palm to my partners. They gawked at it for a second and then took my hand and we were stuck together with a bond that only innocence and sugar can provide.

When we were kids we built our trust out of sticks and stones--a bond that would come to be stronger than sugar and innocence and hope--you would lead us through waters we were not sure we could wade yet.

In 7th grade the spaces between hallways and classrooms are where I learned that silence breeds intolerance and apathy. Our trust was no longer built on sticks and stones, but on those moments when we chose not to be silent--when we were thankful that someone said anything to us at all because life only ever matters when you know you exist.

And so I will write you letters so that you know that I see you.

Dear Girl In Class That Listens to Boys Making **** Jokes,

I see you. I see those boys too. And they will see me when I reach down their throats where the hate they spew lives tell them that I will not meet their intolerance with tolerance.

I’ll probably get a phone call from mom.

Dear Boy In Class Who Changes All Of the Pronouns In His Poems Because He’s Scared Of  The Students Around Him,

I see you, I see those edits you make too. You’re beautiful and so are your words. Stop making bad edits.

Dear Boy In Class Who Thinks Gay Is A Synonym For Stupid

I know that all hate is learned and that you learned that this was okay because no one ever told you it wasn’t. I’m telling you now. Stop.

Dear Students In Class Who Are Afraid To Speak Up

I’m writing this poem for you. I want you to take this poem with you when you leave. Turn it over in your mind like the cool side of a pillow when you lay down to sleep. Let it support your head and your dreams.

Repeat it like a prayer so that these words will stick in your mind, even when I’m not there: Just because school is a weapon free zone does not mean that you leave your mind, your heart, your thoughts, your questions, your voice at home.

Take this poem and place it beneath your feet. Stand on it, use it to meet your adversaries at eye level every time they try to look down on you.

Let this poem catch you when they try to blast you back with backwards rhetoric.

Use this poem as a shield--hold the words around you so that when the world tries to drop bombs on you you’ll be able to appreciate the beat.

Keep it like a secret and when you’re alone and writing and the words are stuck in the ink of your pen remember that poetry doesn’t come from words, it comes from a willingness to love and to be loved. I know this because the first poem I ever heard was when my mother held my head in her lap and told me the only Spanish I would ever remember--todo para la familia--everything for the family.

And so I’ll leave those words as a mantra for you and I hope that you’ll understand some day that you don’t need this poem and you can crumple it up and throw it away because your voice matters and even if it’s met with silence, nothing will change that.

To The Teachers That My Students Write Poems About,

Take this poem. Use it as a warning.

My students are better poets than me.

wallpaper women
are ripped down in single sheets,
replaced by prettier ones
with more labyrinthine markings
and colours that shine,
but even then, a picture is placed overtop,
in a fine gold frame and a fibre canvas
with artwork drawn by feeble hands

wallpaper women,
are women.
they are you and i. we are bystanders,
eager to scream out, but a single hand
covers our mouths like a veneer.
we are to blend in,
we are to not speak,
unless we are asking,
“how may i take your order?”
we are a service, a factory,
we keep the world going.

wallpaper women
are artwork,
art that is not noticed by them,
who continue to believe
they are mere pieces of decoration,
something to make the walls pretty.
if we are artwork, why are we covered
with frames and photos and decoration?

wallpaper women
are people.
we are nurturers by nature,
lovers through hatred.
and so many refuse to see
the storm above the soft clouds.

wallpaper women
are told to blend in.
but we are ripped down like pages out of a book,
crumpled up and thrown into nothing.
if you value the story so much,
why do you keep taking pages out?

wallpaper women
are not the future,
they are the past.

women are the future.
women.
women.
women,
            need to be heard.
women need to say “i am here too”
because we are not
just wallpaper,
we are beautiful ****** artwork
that deserves to be seen by
every
        ******
                    one

I am longing to get lost somewhere far, far away. Away from the routine hum of constantly pushing the snooze button. Away from the stress of misunderstanding and complication, the hunger of chaos and disorganization. I desire to grasp the entire world with my own eyes rather than with a microscope that can only be focused on untouched possibility. I want to view life in vibrant colors I've only ever been able to understand in my mind and to speak of my adventures in words that have never been written down. I want to drive down avenues that no longer exist and balance at the very top of a mountain that has forgotten the feel of footsteps. I am thirsty for the impossible. I am exhausted of falling asleep to the sound of my own heartbeat banging against my bedroom walls and breathing in air that has already been exhaled in past lives. I will never settle for contentment. I will never settle.

I am having trouble writing.
It is as if there is a wall of bulletproof glass separating me from the words that are dying to escape the metal cage they are kept in. I am the only one with a key sitting comfortably in the pockets of my jeans, but no matter how hard I pound my fists against the wall, I do not get any closer to quieting the agonizing screams emerging from the trap. They get louder, aching for liberation, tethering their syllables around the bars as they sit, confined within a reality I am desperate to free them from.

They are starving to live. I can see the outlines of their bones through the transparent letters that blanket their elastic limbs, each day growing more tired, forgetting the taste of hope every minute that passes. I can feel them collecting dust, shrinking down to fragile skeletons that have begun to lose meaning. What if one day I will no longer be able to see them? What if one day I have nothing left to save?

I am starving to live. I cannot feel love without a knife stuck wedged in the back of my throat reminding me that I have nothing to describe it with. I can give all of myself to the one who thankfully accepts it but my teeth chatter at the thought of having to apologize for stealing joy from the cookie jar. I am sorry for having no words to say sorry. They told me to tell you that they are sorry for their absence, but I do not know how to say this without them.

For now, I am waiting. The same way I do for Fridays, for your call, for my heartbeat to obey the speed limit, for time to run dry.

I will continue to wait
patiently, tiredly, averting my eyes to the hopes that maybe tomorrow, they will be small enough to squeeze through the bars and set me free.