More Than a Number.

Location

Maybe things would have been different if we were not in high school, 
if her age ended in -ty instead of -teen...

Maybe this transition in time could have stopped the casual exchange of slanderous names, branded into the soft flesh growing around her abdomen...
Slut.
Whore.
Idiot.

Our fellow classmate inflicted these burns with their words, and on occasion I was looked at for approval of their mockery.
But who was I to judge?
I acted like a church kid while addicted to pornography.
I was with a different guy every week last month.

Was she a slut, or did she just get caught?

I wondered while looking at her baggy shirts in class what line she crossed that turned her from "healthy" into "whore."
What is the innocent child that she now bore?
Was her decision to keep her baby,
reason enough to make her out to be an atrocity?

Was she an idiot to trust the man she loved, or the doctor's prescription?

When did our generation take the blessing of pregnancy and turn into a disgrace, but alcohol is considered in good taste?
The very kids that kept their lips to ears when she walked by,
would go to the bathrooms to get high.

We looked at her soley as a growing percent,
like so many teenage girls across the world who get pregnant.
This statistic that we went to class with was ridiculed,
labled as as error in tradition and age,
but for what?
For having to wear her mistake while the rest of us could hide them?

To hell with all all we have ever learned about teen pregnancy,
about the shame and idiocy of their ways.
People have come up with countless arguments against these young mothers,
but do not be a coward in the face of their judgement!

Do not tell me the way a mother looks at their firstborn child is a mistake.
Do not make it seem that telling a young girl what do do with her baby is women's rights.
And further more, 
do not let the girl at school with the expanding waistline ever feel ashamed.
Hold her hand and say that every pound she wears she would with pride,
for the perfect little life she has growing inside.

 


 

Guide that inspired this poem: 

Comments

giannacecilia

This is amazing. I especially love the parts about how the kids who judge her for being pregnant are hypocritical and go off and do things like drinking and drugs. This is so powerful!

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