when i was younger,
afternoons meant screaming matches;
sorry, i mean screaming
lectures, maybe
or sessions
never matches-
we were never allowed to reply
or she'd scream louder and
louder.

i grew up ashamed.
ashamed of my body
ashamed of my personality
ashamed of my quirks and ticks
ashamed of what made me, me
i hated them.
i wanted to strip them away,
peel off my skin,
bleach my face,
burn my hands,
remove anything
that made me her target.
to this day, i still
hold out hope
that i may one day
stop hating myself.

crying was a weakness
unworthy of comfort
i have no memory
of being comforted
or held
just
alone
my pillow and my stuffed animals
for company
oh, how i longed to be held
just once
just for a moment,
someone to hold me up
when i couldn't breathe.

she used to tell us
the reason she screamed so loudly
was because she had tried, in the past
to speak softly.
apparently, we never listened.

i don't remember her
ever speaking evenly
i don't remember a day
without screams
(oh the screams)
filling the house, my mind
and even if she had tried so hard
to be quiet with us, and failed,
aren't mothers supposed to be patient,
even if the children do not listen?

i hated the way she would scream, yes
but more than that i hated
the way she would tower over me
face inches from mine,
eyes alight with what i could only
describe as
pure hatred
the image still haunts me
i'm still scared of her eyes, sometimes.

she gets so mad, sometimes.
i'm convinced she is not aware,
she does not remember
the things she says
when she is taking out her anger
on me.
a blind rage.
isn't that all i am?
an outlet for her anger?
the antagonist to her lead character?
the useless child she has to drive to school
for two more years?
will i ever be anything but
the result of years of anger?
the target of her mockery?
the recipient of her insults?
will i ever be more than
ugly
*****
disgusting
manipulative
evil
fat
stupid
dumb
unca­ring
unloving
ungrateful
a monster
a brat
a demon
a pig
an animal
boring
antisocial
timid
unlikeable
unwanted?

i have only ever known her to be sharp
harsh
disgusted with anything i do
that's why it hurts
when she gives me brief hugs,
smiles,
tells me she only screams
because she loves me
because i know
her intentions are pure
if her actions
are knives slotted between
my ribs.

I’m tired of all the arguments,
Being all it’s doing is bringing me down,
Even if they don’t see it,
I need it,
The longing for love,
For a dove with a broken sole,
It cannot come from magic,
It cannot come from static,

I’m tired of always being put down,
You are supposed to have good sound,
Quit telling me I’m worthless,
That I’m nothing,
You say that you care,
But if you did you could see the tare that is in my heart,

You say that you are proud of me,
I can’t see it,
You tell me too many times that I’m a mess up,
Or to shut up,
So no I don’t see it,

You say that I’m needed in this world,
The world is doing perfectly fine without me,
I know that you don’t see my potential,
But I see what you don’t,
A broken sole just trying to live its life.


So, I created this story for one of my friends who is going through hell at home. Her parents treat her like garbage so, I created this to show her parents!

Somewhere I lost a piece in me.
It’s all covered in the past.
Fog and smoke surround my mind,
The voices they echo inside.

What have I become?

Feelings of none I’m only numb,
A shiver lingers down my spine.
That piece once me now empty,
Not free

What has happened to me?

Days I cry a river like Nile,
But nothing soothes my pain.
The echoes inside are now in screams,
Between people bound to rings.
Pressured chest and clutched breath

This never use to be me.

I’m so lost in pain, like stitches pulled
I can kick and claw for a better tomorrow,
But I just don’t feel like it today.

Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be.

It’s the dull thud in my head,
Trying to count the calories I’ve eaten today.
Have I eaten enough?
Who knows,
I don’t care.

It’s the prickling sensation in my shoulders,
The panic that starts to rise,
When I think of someone touching me.
Why don’t I like it,
How can I make myself like it?
I give up.

It’s when I look for comfort,
And have to look to a therapist.
At least she’s unconditional,
Doesn’t expect anything from me.
Anything but $165 per hour.

That is when the realization sets in.

I’m tired of being this person my parents wanted.
This happy,
Healthy,
Optimistic person.
She’s not me.
I cry as I write this,
Because I think she died a long time ago,
And this imposter has been in her place.

This Hollow,
Feeble,
Weary imposter.

I tried to look for ways to bring her back,
A defibrillator,
As a hopeless last resort.

I tried running,
I tried lifting,
I was looking in the wrong place though.
Those were activities that made her into who she was,
That helped her along the wrong journey,
A journey not meant for her,
Chosen by someone else.

I tried reading,
Reading of all kinds.
I tried literature,
But she wasn’t interested in that.
I tried Young Adult Fiction,
That peaked her interest.
But only in the way
That it sparked hope.

She hated that hope,
Despised the hero prevailing,
Getting their lover in the end,
Fighting for their family,
Loving their family,
Being loved by their family.
She hated that hope,
Because it reminded her of what she wanted,
And was denied.

No,
Young Adult Fiction was not the way to go.

I tried Netflix,
Movies,
TV shows.
I wasn’t going to make the mistake of giving her hope though.
I gave her shows with dark themes,
Corruption.
With deceitful,
Untrusting characters.
Characters with scars,
And traumatic pasts.

This helped,
Not in the way I had intended though.
She found solace in those characters
That wore their trauma on their sleeves.
Those who had been to hell and back,
And had to deal with the consequences along the way.

And then I found poetry.
Poetry had always piqued her interest,
But she was unsure of it.
Didn’t know what to write about,
Or how to write.
Then,
One day,
She bought a book.

This book showed her that poetry didn’t have to have a rhyme scheme,
Didn’t have to have a set pattern or flow.
It could be raw,
Open,
Powerful with hidden meaning.

Suddenly that girl had a way to express herself.
All the shame she felt,
At the horrid feelings she hoarded inside,
She had a way to feel them.
A means to explore what she had desperately tried to hide.

Somewhere along the way,
That joyful,
Cheerful,
Shining girl died.
She died when she put the pen to paper,
And was faced with what had been done to her,
The childhood that had been stolen from her.
She died when she realized her hopes,
Hopes for somewhere to call home,
Somewhere that wasn’t trapping,
Confining,
Brimming with painful memories,
She died when she realized those hopes were also dead.

So I’m left,
Mourning at the gravestone.
Mourning who that girl had tried so hard to be,
For her parents,
And for the sake of those who pretended to care.

But with her death,
She granted a freedom.
A freedom to become whoever I want,
Whoever I’m feeling that day.
No restrictions,
Limitless boundaries,
Of what I want to do,
Who I want to be,
And where I want to go.

For now I am empty.
Hollow from all the expectations,
Of who people wanted me to be.
Of who I tried to be.
Of who I couldn’t be.

For now I will be hollow,
I will be empty,
I will be sad.
I will mourn the death of someone I loved.
And then when the time comes,
I will be whomever I want to be next,
Because that hopeful girl gave me that freedom,
And I will not let her death be in vain.

It’s tough to write a happy poem.
The poems about the nasty,
Gritty,
Gut wrenching stuff-
I got it down.
But a happy poem?
That’s gonna be weird.

I think it’s because growing up,
In the home and life I did,
I learned not to hold on to the happy stuff.
To not feel the good feelings for too long.
The happy moments were far and few in between,
And when I had them I was scared to enjoy them,
For fear that enjoyment would be taken advantage of,
Used,
Broadcasted.
When I felt happy moments,
I did my best to hide and push them away.

There were moments though,
Where amidst all the pain and suffering,
There were moments I was brought comfort.
There were moments that made me want to live,
Want to go on,
Search for something better.
These moments were brought by two furry ears,
Eyes with the closest shade to my own,
And a long furry tail.
Yea, I’m talking about my cat.

And now the poem has taken a sharp turn from meaningful,
To just absurd.
Right?
That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?
Dude, this chick wrote a poem about her cat.
Her ******* cat.

These moments aren’t when my cat was being funny,
Or playful.
There are a lot of those memories that I enjoy.

These moments are the ones where I’m sitting on the stairs,
My hand pressed to my mouth,
Suppressed sobs shuddering through my body.

She’s selfish,
She hates us,
She hates me.
She doesn’t deserve any ounce of pity from me,
I meant every word I said.

You know that’s not true,
She is your daughter,
You should care.
You can’t just freeze her out,
She isn’t one of your old college friends,
She needs you.

She doesn’t need me,
She doesn’t want me,
And I don’t want her.

Okay.
You know what,
Fine whatever.

I can only hold on to the hope that she was lying.
But even in those darkest moments,
Listening to my Dad try to defend me,
Just to give up and walk away.
Listening to my Mom,
Throw my name around in the mud,
And stomp all over it in her New Balance Sneakers,
Canni was there.

Animals have a queer way of being there right when you need them,
And Canni is one of the best.
She’d sit there patiently,
While I willowed away into nothing,
The sharp,
Biting feelings of pain,
Echoing in my head.
Those feelings took me down,
To a deep, dark place,
Where there was no feeling.
No feeling happy,
No feeling sad,
No feeling hurt.
There was no feeling at all-
It was safe.
But she brought me back.
She’d rub against me,
Nudge her head under my hand,
Nip at my arm if I didn’t pay attention to her,
Or even just sit there next to me.
She’d listen with me,
Her tail flicking back and forth,
Like she couldn’t believe what was going on either.

Maybe she was trying to distract me,
Maybe she just wanted attention.
Either way,
She made me care when I had nothing left to care for.
She gave me something to hope better for,
Gave me something to work harder for,
Something to get me moving out of the dark,
Hopeless place that had become my heart.
If not for me,
Then for the small animal,
That cared enough to know when I was happy,
And when I was sad.

My cat is the reason that I know love today,
The reason I have feeling today.
And for that,
I can’t thank her enough.

I’m quiet.
I’m afraid if I say anything I’ll start crying,
Screaming,
Laughing,
Maybe all three. That would be something to see.

Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me,
Something fundamentally wrong in my brain.
Why don’t I like people touching me?
It’s not like I was abused,
Or *****,
Sexually harassed.
I don’t have an excuse off the top of my head,
I just don’t like it.

I’ve asked before,
Asked for this one boundary.
She uses every part of me.
I am a tool,
Something to show off.
I get it.
I just hoped that maybe,
Just maybe,
Touch could be my one thing.
Just please don’t touch me.

I feel bad for you,
My Mother said as she grabbed my face,
No one will ever love you.
She’s probably right.
How could anyone love what they couldn’t touch?
Still I had to ask,
Just please don’t touch me.

We are in a small, confined booth now.
She wraps her arm around me to take a picture,
Even makes a big show of prefacing it with an apology.
I know you don’t like being touched,
But,
I’m going to touch you for this picture.
This picture I will show off to all my facebook friends,
I’ll show off my happy family,
My successful daughter.
Look how happy we all are.

Her bracelet caught on my sweater.
She leaned close,
I could feel her breath on my neck and I panicked,
She was so close.
I ****** away,
My body slammed into the wall of the booth.

I could see an apology on her lips,
I could see the maternal instinct starting to kick in,
Just to watch it be drowned by the hurt in her eyes.

Being hurt,
Pain,
It can look like many things.
To me it looks like My Mother lashing out,
Verbal knives pinning me against a wall.
This is the look that drowned out any maternal instinct in her eyes.
She excused herself to the bathroom.
I knew I should’ve gone to apologize.
Say that I didn’t mean to,
Blame it on a headache.

But I was scared.
Fear gripped me and held me in that booth seat.
I knew if I got up,
Went to that bathroom,
She would only scream false lies at me.
She wouldn’t mean them.
They’d still hurt.

So later that night,
When my Mother was crying and crying in the hotel room next to mine,
My Dad texted me
Asked me to meet him in the lobby.
I got down there and the look on his face said it all,
I had failed.
I burst into tears.

He dragged me into a conference room,
Looking around to make sure no attendants or workers noticed.
Asked why I had done it,
Informed me of all the pain, and suffering my Mother is now going through,
Because of me.
Because I couldn’t withstand her touching me for more than 15 seconds,
For a stupid God forsaken picture.

When I found a space between my tears and his accusations,
I plead that I had tried.
I tried my best to be okay with it.

I couldn’t explain to him that it was more than just dislike.
It was invasive,
Whatever instinctual fight or flight switch I had,
Touch triggered it.
How could I tell him it made me feel repulsed,
Revolted,
Disgusted,
Nauseated,
It tore my insides to pieces trying to hold myself together for a picture.
How could I tell him any of this?

So I cried and cried and cried.
And when I got back upstairs,
Saw the notifications on my phone,
And checked on facebook to see that happy picture,
Of a happy daughter,
A happy mother,
And a happy family,
I felt ashamed

I felt guilty,
I felt wrong.
They all wanted this,
They wanted this picture to be true,
And I didn’t know how to give it to them.

I have no sense of pride
when I wake up each morning
to get ready for school.
I do not wish to be here;
not because
I just don’t want to go to school
like most kids,
It’s because I myself
and so many others
have felt what it feels
to be victims here inside these schools.

When you're a victim
you face a fear of similar acts
repeating again,
it's like waking up
and expecting someone to punch you
and knowing you can avoid it.
school is like the punch,
and we show up each day,
waiting for the punch
to strike us down,

we could avoid it
by not showing up,
but we have to show up,
so there's no way out
of the fear.
When you're a victim
of verbal abuse
you never know when it's going to strike,

when someone speaks to you
you're left on edge all the time,
when it happens due to
staff and students
nothing seems safe anymore.
You lose your trust,
you lose your friends
you lose your freedom of safety.

Sadly, most of the time
when someone becomes a victim
of verbal abuse,
the teachers causes it to occur
for two reason;
the first,
because they allow it to happen
and second
the worst
they do it themselves
to the students.

In the classroom
you're there to learn.
No wonder students
have picked-up it's allowed
to put down someone
for being different in any way.
If we learn from our teachers,
and they have taught their students
it's okay to put others down,
how do you blame the students then?

How can you blame students
for learning how to harass a kid
if a teacher single handedly
gave them permission?
When they were being mentored in
the act of putting down,  
instead of raising someone
who was a little weaker up?

How can you undo the damage
put onto the victims
who no longer want to walk into school
but still do each and everyday
because
they have to?
How can you deny a kid
their right to sit in guidance
instead of go to that class
when they are being mistreated
and harassed?

How can you Punish these kids
with detentions
when they have been through worse punishment
than you have the power to give out
with a yellow slip?
When they all say
“it's my word against an adults”
when I’ve heard
the same cries and tears
poor out of girls and boys
who hate it here
because they feel their voices
are unheard,

there issue has never been handled right.
“I reported the teacher
and it's like nothing happened
and only made my time
in that class worse”
“They told me I can't
report the teacher
and I have to report
the students,
How do I report
almost all my class?
someone or probably everyone
will give me a problem
when they get back?”
How do you honestly solve that?

You can’t fix the damage that has been done.
The faculty here
has put students
against students
while they sit back for their amusement,
its sickening
that we allow schools
to partake into such crimes,
To allow Faculty
to insult individual students,
based on their biased opinions
on their Ethnicity,
Religion,
Gender,
and Disabilities.
This is considered a Hate Crime.

Schools Supporting Hate Crimes
and doing absolutely nothing
but skating around the issue
as if that will stop
the appalling act
from happening.
Fooling Around,
to Teasing,
to Playful Jokes,
to Hurtful Ones,
To Insulting Ones considering to be bullying,
Than lead to the start of Harassment,
and Verbal abuse of an individual,
That Can From there,
only move forward
unless the victim is removed
from the environment,
to becoming a Hate Crime.

It’s not funny, you know
It’s not a joke
You laugh at me
Until you choke
I wish you did,
I’d gladly watch
You swallow your words
Like you swallow your Scotch

It’s not something
That you can use
For people to like you
It’s verbal abuse
You’re mocking me
My everything
How would you like it if
I did the same thing?

But I wouldn’t dare
Because I know how it feels
I’ll patiently wait
Life is a rolling wheel
Maybe one day soon
You’ll be treated the same
I’ll be long gone by then
You’re the only one to blame.