To be heard I have fought,

With words like knives

And steely looks…

Been serious,

perhaps all too serious-

I have destroyed and

Broken

Fallen

To be heard,

All for my actions to mean something…

To mean anything in the face of meaninglessness.

 

I have longed to

BE HEARD,

not merely to

be seen.

I have wept-given up-lied-hurt

All to find me, in a place where everyone else felt

infinitely bigger;

There have been many times when I knew

I would always feel smaller

If I did not fight for space,

Space which is rightfully mine.

 

So I gathered that I,

Fighting my diminishing,

could learn to fill

space with kindness- laughs even.

In that way, I would be bigger

and the world a little smaller.

I fight to be heard for myself

My ideas

My future,

And the women, men, children who come before

And, especially, after me.

 

Everyone deserves the justice of

Being heard,

Not having to fight for space, to be

Seen, felt, understood.