Tell Me A Bedtime Story | Teen Ink

Tell Me A Bedtime Story

March 31, 2014
By another_sky PLATINUM, Dallas, Texas
another_sky PLATINUM, Dallas, Texas
31 articles 8 photos 22 comments

Favorite Quote:
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami


tell me where X
meets O
where love meets lips
and tongue meets kiss.

Tell me the story of how the sun dies at dusk
and lives at dawn
just to let the moon come alive
at night

Tell me about how the only good pick up line you could think of
involved all the colors in your crayon box
and how they couldn't describe how gay you were

tell me about strength
about wars of race
tell me about oppression
about the concentration of people on this planet
and the saturation of hate.

tell me bout how the churches
lock their doors at night to keep out the homeless.
tell me about war
strife
and hunger
tell me stories of great women
leading men into battle
just to kill their kin.

Tell me about the south.
about the triangle trade and plantations
tell me about how that was hundreds of years ago
and how history should never be forgotten,
but hating modern whites for actions of our ancestors
is wrong.
because I am not responsible for others sins.

Remember
Racism knows no boundaries
love is kin to fear
and most phobias are just a fear of what you dont know
so educate yourself.
don't rely on the steady flow of information
to keep you in formation with the rest of the population like
the Rockefeller group always wanted.

keep them dumb and they protest less.
keep them glued to screens
and maybe they’ll be a little more docile.

keep the population dumb
let them think they have freedom
when the most they have is two thumbs
monitor the media.
because controlling a person's intake of information allows you to shape their opinion
let them believe their country is great
when the education system is down the drain
and less than half of teens graduating high school can read and write at an 8th grade level.

tell me stories of how this great world came to be
tell me of how this world came to fall
and of man’s worst enemy
its self.

When I was six,
there came to grow inside me
an old soul.
a product of my parents violent divorce and my self reliance.
books,
became my escape.
I ran inside Green Gables daily to see sunshine and happiness
but soon no fiction book could cover a young girls sorrows.
The non-fiction area became my home.
Haddix and Rowling were a bore
I craved knowlege.

a socially awkward bird
lacking the ability to sing found solace in small chirps.
reporting the news and global warming
facing man’s worst fears in my mind
fighting my urge to flee the truth like a knight in shining armor
from my bedroom-
I learned to accept death and the future of it
when my peers were more concerned with childhood crushes
I learned of finance and politics
while they learned how to climb monkey bars.

and when my mother asked if I wanted a bed time story,
I told her
no.
Tell me of pain and sorrow.
tell me of wars of religion and race
tell me of hate.
don't bother with educating me on the topic of heart break
when the only heart break I anticipate is that of too much faith in humanity-
tell me of the selfish act of suicide,
the number of anorexics on the rise.
Tell me of self harm
and the scars my sister and I will bear in the future
of constellations and maps
and how i will
at age 10
insist on them being carved into my thigh
because I am lost
tell me why when I do this
they think I’m sick
but this is the only illness i've had that will consume me for three years
and haunt me for more.
Don't tell me a bedtime story
I say at age six
tell me of this broken world
I will try to fix.

This race is broken I say,
phone in pocket,
watch on wrist
ticking with a battery of poison
clothing made from unnatural fibers,
everything I own leaving pollution in its wake
this world is broken
I say



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