Loud

Only watch the crippling of the shallows but never the resting tides.

Why watch the calm, the flawless? When you have so much to erase.

Please, stay serene to those filtered faces and masked smiles

but never fail to zoom in to those rough frames of misstructure of my splotched humanity.

 

It’s all but natural to not deliver a praise looking upon those 32’s

And string along a line of metal and looks all around.

Meet each “x” on your calendar and even work on cursive

But mess up one dot and all of it crumbles to ashes.

 

I’ve worked my nights just filling pages that someone will soon burn.

Spent mornings wishing I could just believe yet again that today will be a new age.

I wake up hoping today will be my stage.

However, the only news I get is of worries and stares.

People don’t care about the geek, do they?

 

I shake my head like an idiot when every single teacher talks

And do each assignment even before they speak.

They might forget the paper’s due, but I don’t.

I drool of home and to tell my mom, I accomplished everything she’s dreamed of.

She gives me the widest smile and hugs me tightly, my dad laughs and pats my head in joy.

A minute by and that baselines of ordinary have been returned to.

I drag myself back to my cage to scold my being to worked harder when the hands tick by again.

I force myself to believe that maybe they’ll remember longer.

And they do.

 

But not when I come home with trophies or bags of medals

Or perhaps a title to my name.

They glare for hours only when the hand makes me slip my forever rushing feet.

Screams and cries and her head being hugged aggressively in her hands

with faces flustered.

 

It ends with my dad’s abuses and him saying yet

once again as done in the past sixteen years,

“Don’t talk back. Don’t debate. Listen.”

His phrases ambush my only chance to tell them that

 

Mom, dad,

I’m but your product, I’m but a human.

My feet have blisters because I force them each day to run

And my hands have naturally allowed blood to stay at the surface of my hands.

 

“Wash your face”

mom says when my eyes glow red

but we both know that water can’t forever drown my endless nights.

 

I can’t fix my emotions.

 

I’m trying and yet maybe I believe I’m not trying enough.

Yes, I’m trying to cross my made up latitudes just to make them smile longer.

My dad once told me that he was proud of me since the day I was born.

I think he meant he held pride for me the day I was born because no matter how many chapters I write;

he’ll never cry in joy for me again.

 

I’m just trying to live; I’m just trying to be.

I shouldn’t have to be the bigger person here.

I’m just a child.

I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my love and my brick and mortar.

A fifteen-year-old shouldn’t have to work till she can’t seem to find her words anymore, she shouldn’t have to cry silently so that her parents don’t worry.

 

 She shouldn’t have to console her sister each night not to weep.

She shouldn’t have to hide her pain because it might be a bit too much for her parents to handle.

She shouldn’t have to hold all the burden and that’s only just her own pain.

She shouldn’t have to stress on the crippling of the waves but never enjoy as the tired waters silently speak and return back with the sand.

 

Poetry Slam: 
This poem is about: 
Me
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