What I really want to say is

wake up. Look around you,

your children are unhappy

and you blame them as if

they’re the fools. Saying it’s

social media that makes

them sensitive, that depression

is just some ditzy trend.

That their anxiety is just them

being stressed, that their aggression

comes from something left unsaid.

When will you open your eyes

and finally come to terms and realize

that mental illness is not some trend.

That kids are dying inside taking pills, smoking,

drinking to numb their minds to function,

because being mentally ill is not something 

allowed to be accepted.

Go ahead raise your voice, shake your heads,

because you can’t be wrong against a child with 

balled up fists. With tears in their eyes as they 

look at their skin, seeing the things that wish they 

didn’t do, seeing the marks of this ugly truth. 

With sunken cheeks and spear like ribs,

they’re greeted by the devil's grin.

When will you wake up and realize its 2021

that people will die from being left unwanted.

That they turn to booze and drugs to silence

their heart screaming out for love, from

parents who don't care and will start battles

by fighting unfair. Only to show their claws and

teeth, to a child who is barely a teen, they don’t

care if it’s unfairly, the child bows down, because

they are nothing compared to royalty.

When will you wake up and understand

that children are allowed to be hurt and sad,

so what if you feed them and put a roof over their head

it's your damn job, you signed up, you’re the parent.

Children don’t owe anything. For you taking care of them

quit throwing around your insecurities, and grow up

learn how to properly love them.

For when they speak up it’s disrespect,

and when they say how they feel it's considered selfish.

Yet you take your anger out on a punching bag with a heart,

you’re the one tearing their damn world apart.

Hateful words and bony hands, painting marks

on a living canvas at the damn age of 10.

What I really want to say is wake up, grow up if

you will. Learn to love like a proper parent and 

stop treating your children like corn let at the bottom

of some damn abandoned sill. They are not your

toys to play with. They are flesh and blood and tears

and screams. They are the start of new humanity,

and you beat them down into a fine pulp

and drink them like fine wine at a winery.

When will you finally learn from all the wrongs 

you have done, a quick newsflash for you, they 

don’t make a right. Instead you creastea child

who takes flight a the sight of a hand and blanks

out at voices that begin to rise because in their

heads they are reliving the hell of childhood

that you created all over again. Enough.

Enough is enough, you’re adults. You should know right

from wrong, so stop with the ignorance. Love your children properly.