The morning bell rings out like a command,

I take my place with a practiced, steady hand.

They see the perfect posture and the easy grace,

The porcelain stillness of a smiling face.

"You’ll go so far," the teachers always say,

Mapping out the hours of my every day,

But beneath the surface of the "Golden Child,"

The storms are screaming, and the winds are wild.

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​A thousand fingers point to different shores,

To open hallways and to locked-tight doors.

They ask for certainty, for a "ten-year plan,"

To build a future before I even can

Decide which version of myself is real,

Or find the words for how I truly feel.

I am an architect with no ground to stand,

Sifting through the hourglass’s shifting sand.

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​But the heaviest weight isn't the grade or the test,

It’s the secret I carry locked deep in my chest.

When the porch light flickers and the world goes dark,

The "perfect home" loses every glowing spark.

No one sees the shadows or the low-hissed words,

The shattering sounds that are never heard.

I hide the bruises of the spirit and heart,

Watching the kitchen walls slowly fall apart.

​

​I am a bridge between two different worlds,

A banner of hope that is tightly furled.

Smiling for the cameras, nodding for the crowd,

While the silence at home is deafeningly loud.

Just a teenager caught in a tempest of "shoulds," Misunderstood in the way only a ghost could.

Searching for a compass, waiting for the light,

Just trying to make it through one more night.