I write for those who have no voice
The boys and girls with lips sown shut by expectations,
Another thread tightening their lips with every phrase like “girls are seen but not heard” and “boys don’t cry”, who peer from behind the mirror of self-doubt screaming even though no one hears them I seek,
To shatter the glass casing of what they should be and let hope blossom like May flowers,
The debris of disapproval acting as the fertilizer that would allow delicate buds of long hidden and rejected dreams to peak through surprised casings of “someone is actually listening”

I write for those whose voices are ignored
Children from broken homes born to fiendish mothers and absent fathers who look to the streets to escape the hopelessness of their own homes, to receive the love and acceptance they should have always had

For, boys getting trapped by those streets in a vicious cycle of death and destruction, whose hearts become wintery peaks too isolated to let the warmth of the sun melt them because they've been taught that the world is a cold place and the only way to get ahead is to sell that powdered ice, shavings off the mountain peaks hidden in their chest, to memories of their devastated childhoods

For, girls stuck on street corners selling fading beauty like broken dolls with empty eyes who once wanted to be doctors and lawyers and yes, even the first female president, before life forced them to seal those desires away behind the brick wall named reality

For, men and women with gaping black holes in the center of their chest that they know everyone can see but no one ever mentions, who try to fill up that hole with drugs and booze, with sex and compelling voices, with anything that doesn't make them feel so alone

For, those who wish to disappear completely, the freaks in the high school circus tent who slice their wrists to try to empty themselves of the bad spirits like some Native American tribes because maybe if they cut deep enough everything that makes people hate them will disappear along with themselves, because it isn't like anyone would miss them anyway so why should they suffer through the disdain they endure every day

For, the boys and girls, men and women, trying to fight that uphill battle, trying to climb out of the insatiable black hole called depression with its roller coaster ride of sky breaking highs and plummeting lows that never ends even after they are stuck on a diet of prescription pills and self-loathing, judged and ostracized for something they have no control over

This is why I write

I am the activist who calls for a change

I am the a spokesman for those whose voices can’t be heard

I am the friend who reaches out to cross that barrier and let them know they aren’t alone

I am a poet