Stay silent
Sit straight
Perfect hair
Perfect teeth
Perfect breast
Perfect house
Perfect parents
Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!
This, is the bullshit society tries to shove down my throat. But I am constantly choking. Grasping for air, reaching out trying to keep hold of what is left of me.
It started as a little kid. Every time id color outside the lines my teacher thought there was something wrong with me. “Here sweetie, try holding your pen like this, now color inside the lines”. But I thought the blue, pink and yellow crayon swirls that curved outside the lines were like the ribbons on my bike.
And every time my teacher caught me daydreaming? Oh that called for a meeting with my mom, who was promptly informed that maybe I should see a doctor. But I only daydreamed because I found the wars id already learned about with my grandfather more interesting playing out in my head, than the one sided praise America bullshit my history teacher robotically spat out.
And ooh my math teacher, good ol Mr. Roberto couldn’t wrap his mind around the way that I would solve math problems. I’d get the right answer and be the first to raise, but he’d mark it wrong because I didn’t follow the systematic rules of the book.
As I erased my answers to scribble in the text book methods, id wonder if I was stupid. Dumb. That weird girl who always seemed to be writing. Everyone else followed the rules, why couldn’t I?
So I tried. First I went shopping, new me? New clothes.
But I couldn’t fit those jeans, could stretch on that shirt, and those shoes were uncomfortable.
I couldn’t fit into those pair of jeans because god let his hand slip, forming curves
I’ve got waist thighs and hips. Well defined.
So there must be something wrong with me.
But out of all these things wrong with me, these are the only things I can seem to find right with me.
Yes it’s cruel how society can’t seem to look into then past all the little quirks that make us human.
Into, then past, and then to the stories that make up who we really are.
Into the times that luck missed us, our lost mothers forgot to kiss us.
Our fathers were too busy selling dope to miss us.
Into the times of hardships, where we wouldn’t mind skipping a meal so that our little brothers and sister could have a lunch for tomorrow and wouldn’t be made fun…Again.
On the outside people would see our old and rusty looking van pull up. Then ten to fifteen children hop out. Wearing a rainbow of colors. Torn sneakers, old powerpuff girl’s shirts, and our homemade, lopsided stitched pants.
Their faces would turn up in judgment.
But what they didn’t know was that….all fifteen of us where happy.
Crowded inside that van was everything we needed. We never recognized what we didn’t have, until we started looking.
This is why I write. Because all these emotions have no outlet. But the release come when I can sit, smoothly press an ink pen to a crisp white sheet of paper, and write.