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.

dont, or, at least pretend to.
2. write poetry about them. let all of your poetry be about them, make it clear. so people come to you after slams and say im sorry for your loss. make them think they died. remember it was really you who passed
3. let the swim into every detail of your life. cook meals and wish you were eating it with them. make playlists of their favourite songs. get tattoos thinking about them. let them sleep in your skin.
4. reread your texts. listen to voicemails. read letters over and over again. let their voice be what rocks you to sleep and nightmares of them crying again jolt you awake. let them steal sleep from you. they deserve it more.
5. start crying again. you stopped letting yourself cry months ago. start, and dont stop. cry when you have that dream about the again. join them in their sorrow, but let yours be a different kind.
6. learn to hate them. what they liked, they way they moved. teach yourself to despise them. you mightve ruined 'us' but make it their fault. move the weight of the sky from your shoulders to theirs.
7. pretend youre teaching yourself to love yourself. start wearing your binder to sleep. it might make cure dysphoria, but it will not cure the bruised ribs. 'meeting people' will become finding people to hook up with. 'going out' will becoming staying home and drinking till youre sick.
8. pretend you do not still love them. lie to yourself, lie to your friends. 'im fine' you say, 'im over them' you are not. you are stuck under them. they are the rock, and your depression is the hard place.
9. dont call it depression. dont let it be. tell yourself to man up and get over it, like medication and therapy is for crazy people and you are NOT crazy.
10. slowly, let yourself forget. let yourself stop reading the messages. stop writing the poems. stop looking at your tattoos and thinking about how they loved the moon that night.
11. again, stop. stop drawing, writing, thinking. forget about your schoolwork and remember your bed. forget about your friends, and remember your bed. forget about eating, remember your bed
12. take your friend's advice and eat something. lie to them and say you feel better. lie and say youre happy. start lying again.
13. 13 was our lucky number. i think that has something to do with the 13 parts of you i cannot let go of.

I wonder if you have any idea of what you’ve done
You think that I think that I have won.
I have not won.
And you, dear, you are not fooling anyone.
I let you in and you became a hurricane,
destroying with no aim,
turning a paled eye to my face,
you’d say your words,
you’d shoot your mace,
And you say I was the winter breeze that shook bare your trees,
killing your vibrant reds of Autumn leaves,
But Autumn leaves are already dying, you see
I didn’t see what you’d make out of me.
You’d create a shadow of a cold candle,
burnt out,
smokey thoughts billowing around my head
ceasing to leave
in the dizzy hours of the morning until i have gone through and picked out the stitches of every word of every conversation id sewn together with you,
finding nothing but two children with no one longing for someone who would not leave.
I cannot believe that I did not see
your slurring, grim toxicity,
I wore a bullet proof vest around everyone i knew
no one saw underneath,
yet for you, I put forth my shattered youth,
to you, I exposed the truth
and put the vest away
and in the beginning we fixed each other,
we wrapped ourselves in blankets of the other’s colors
but by the end, the blanket’s colors began to bleed with our own

You distracted me from the
dead hiding in the (hellish) words you put in my head
by the illusion of warmth
In your fiery shades of orange,
I did not notice my shades of blues,
you would melt me,
or I would extinguish you.

To the boys who like girls with eating disorders.

1. Be unafraid to call her beautiful. Feel no hesitation when articulating the grace in her intricacies. The delicacy she wields when flicking back her hair. The shape her semblance set in as she sleeps. The way… she holds a fork.
Even as you call her beautiful  you may experience pangs of guilt. Acknowledge that despite your appreciation for her formation you do not want her to be like this forever. Watch as polite small talk and casual compliments get swallowed up by half full plates and half empty stomachs. Watch her try to chew and words you feed.

2. If you make if to boyfriend status. Her disease may begin to look like the ex partner she’s still hung up over. Watch as she quotes all his favorite things he use to tell her. Do not tell me, I look like I’m getting better I can’t look like getting better. She may look like the embodiment of the phrase “old habits die hard”. But remember… Mother taught you patience and forgiveness. When someone abuses you, you may be vocal about it or you may repress it but you do not forget, and boy... she has some scars. Across every angular bone protruding where a body use to be. In every atrophied muscle where disease did once grip and seek to claim something as it’s own. In every mirror. In darker shop windows where that display mannequins sport the latest illness and in every look you give her. There is no vaccination for this victimization. It will take time.

3... If her condition has left her anxious...

Left her white in the face like porcelain plates serving a future that tastes like insecurity.

If her condition has left her hopeless. Left her thinking that a full stomach means an empty future.
If her condition has left her broken, in any sense of the word, he is not without fixture.
She was a woman before she was a victim. She was a person before she was a patient. She is still a woman, she is still a person. She has a destination outside of disorder. She has dreams that could be bigger than these demons.

And 4… and this is not is not for the boys who like girls with eating disorders, this is for the boys who love!
4. Do you think she is worth it? What can you outweigh?.. Can you make her smile, can you... fill her?

you call her a ****,
you call her a *****,
you tear her skin into tiny shreds
and then beg for more,
your masculinity is fuelled by the sexuality you stripped her of.
she has no right to be liberated in your eyes,
but your eyes also want to see what is in between her thighs,
your respect for her body only exists as long as she is your possession.

a woman is to you what a table is to a person;
something to use,
sometimes a burden.
a woman can't be outspoken without being a *****,
but if she's quiet you treat her like ****,
you tell us to fight for what we believe in,
but when we do you tell us we're complaining,
(maybe you think I'm complaining)
while you're thinking about that
please mind the wage gap,
yes the wage gap MORE THINGS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT!
I get 75 pence for every pound a man makes,
maybe I'm making mistakes?
no, no I am not.
perhaps some people have forgot
that someone's *** doesn't make them under qualified,
I think your brain is nonaligned,  
because right now in two thousand and sixteen a woman should be respected even if she isn't the ******* queen.

I hope you can see what struggles women endure,
we may as well go back years and years and knit at home while you go to war.

I'll just be over here cleaning the entire house,
oh and while I'm at it I'll clean that glass ceiling while waiting for my husband and feeding my offspring
because that's all a woman does right?
cook clean and nurture, and give yourself to your husband at night
God forbid you swing the other way!
single, or worse...
no kids and gay!

women have to fit into perfect cookie cutters.
that, and a size 6
but not too skinny though, men aren't nutters!
big *****, big *** and a small waist
your extra few inches of skin can be erased with diet pills, exercise plans and corsets!
if not, you can choose the forfeit,
of society telling you that you can achieve your dream beach body,
to catch the attention of somebody
preferably a man who can be the bread winner,
while we can stay at home, look after his kids and cook his dinner.

I'll stop complaining now and go back to concealing my blemishes and under eye bags,
while you talk to your friend about how we are still just slags.

~T.T