when i was eleven i wrote poems about things that i didn’t understand yet
i filled page after page with laments about love i knew only from 2 dollar movies and books i borrowed from my mother’s closet
i kept them inside a separate binder, unhinged from fractions and haikus and European history
that binder was only opened when i knew no one was looking, my lap in first period where the kids were supposed to leave everything, including me, alone
when the boy in the desk across from me asked to see it and i said no, he got up and ripped it out of my arms because he grew up taking yeses and nos to be synonymous
and the teacher monitoring us told me that boys would be boys, and that words had no gunpowder
when he read my secrets aloud for the whole table to hear, no one silenced him
and when the girl across from him started to draw comics of me with nooses around my neck and blood peeling from my wrist, nobody asked her to stop
because we are told that people cannot kick with words, cannot commit murder with names
and that the little kids hanging from trees by the same ropes that girl drew were just confused and that nothing is wrong with kids being, beating kids
they say sticks and stones won’t break bones, and that sadness is our own, that antidepressants are cures for hatred when you are not the one that is giving it
that calling someone fat is not a crime if it fits one person’s definition of true, that we can measure beauty with labels and numbers the same way we measure spoiled food
that sadness is a chemical affliction and not a problem that can be caused by words, that the children coming home with bruises instead of report cards and tears instead of stickers are asking for it, that they are somehow at fault
that scolding a class of seventh graders for writing “r*****” on the face of whatever kid had the lowest test score and “p****” on the head of the highest is enough to remove from them the assumption that normality is a necessary trait
when there are applesauce stains on the library carpet from generations of kids being forced to eat in the library to feel less alone
when school policy says that slamming a door gets you a suspension but telling a girl that her father left her because he was sick of her face just requires a reprimand, how can we say that we care about the wellbeing of anyone except for ourselves
boys who have to kiss their boyfriends behind trailers because they’re afraid of what would happen if they just said ‘i love you’ in front of anyone else
and boys that look like girls who have to tie ribbons around their chest just so they can love themselves find notes on their desk that read “you’re not a real boy”
the suicide rates are skyrocketing among kids my age but they say that they’re fixing things, that it’s all in our heads and then confine us to hospital beds
our charts read words they plucked out of DSMs and medical journals, but our hearts are locked inside chests that still beat for the sole purpose of stopping
sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will make me break them myself, like porcelain we are beautiful but easily broken and society has handed our peers a baseball bat
middle schoolers sink into vats of alcohol and points of needles because they want an escape that their protectors will not give them because nobody’s hit them yet
when girls use their lunch money to buy diet pills we hear them told that skinny is not equal to pretty but the magazines mumble otherwise
when he thinks it’s okay for his girlfriend to tell him he’s nothing because, heck, maybe he is less than something, do you not see what is wrong here?
we tell them it gets better but we don’t tell them when and we certainly don’t try to help
i have never believed i was good enough because i was grown up trained that love was for girls who wore dresses and never said no and when i finally said yes it was to blades instead of birthday parties and prozac instead of playdates
sticks and stones may break millions of bones, but words will shatter hearts