I cried when I started secondary school

because I was a salmon who refused to swim

Into the jaws of the bear that waited

And I gambled my friends in

And exchanged them for a few more months of childhood

And I thought that maybe I was hard-done-by

And maybe I paid for my naivety

Because I took the mild brutality

of your nerd-ousting classmates

In the locker room

When they stabbed between my scales

With words they'd sharpened for you

And I endured maths lessons of torment

Jerked into being a marionette

For the boy who wanted to see

How an innocent girl dances when you tell her to

Who mocked my

Resolute, depreciating attempt to abstain

From being a teenager

And to this day there are still people

Who wait with baited breath

For the dancer to put a foot wrong

And to hear the corruption creep into her mouth

Paint her tongue black with curses

And while they dig for obscene thrills

I laugh

Because it would be easy if they only knew how

All they need

Is to plug their harassment into mental health

And the 'f***'s begin to foam around my lips

Because you and your mind

Are areas of mass destruction

And you are rigged with landmines

That are programmed to decimate

Both you and me

And what else can I say but 'f***'

When I learn

That I was worried about

Some page of some textbook

And a daisy-chain bracelet

While you worried that you'd never fit into

The box you'd cut for yourself?