when childhood left,
we were still kids.
1 bang
i had my first active shooter drill
in middle school.
we had one every other month,
the same thing every time.
shut off the lights,
close the blinds,
cover the windows,
put the desks by the door,
don’t make a sound.
it never felt real, just another
boring safety thing we had to do,
just another just in case
that would never happen because
it’s safe here.
we would always whisper and fidget
and make all kinds of sounds.
the aurora shooting happened
when i was 9. sandy hook was
the same year. i don’t remember
sandy hook, but i remember
not being afraid. it felt far away,
like a distant tragedy in one of my books,
far away from me and my safe,
comfortable life in a new jersey suburb.
just another sad story on the news.
i was 14 when parkland happened.
it didn’t feel so far away anymore.
i read about the victims,
i read what their families said.
i remember one victim’s sister said
most of all he was my baby brother.
it was the first time
my best friend saw me cry.
i was 15
when my school went into lockdown.
we hid behind a half-wall meant
to keep us in line
for lunch, and i remembered
all those early childhood drills.
shut off the lights,
close the blinds,
cover the windows,
put the desks by the door,
don’t make a sound.
i texted my friends to make sure they were alive.
i wondered,
what good would any of this do
if someone really wanted to kill us?
2 huh
i was in elementary school, 4th grade,
9 years old, when i learned what to do
if someone tried to rape me. scream, run,
your elbows can cause the most damage.
a girl said she’d rather be shot than raped.
i didn’t really know what rape meant yet
but i agreed.
in 6th grade i rejected a boy
and for the rest of the year
he called me names in the hallways:
bitch,
slut,
whore.
my friends told me i should’ve just said yes,
because he really did like me.
i was in 7th grade when
the stanford rape case happened.
i’ll never forget the outcome:
my life is less important than his future.
in junior year, the burning sun scandal
came out, and it was just another day,
another story, i’m disgusted but
not even surprised.
for her 18th birthday, my friend got
pepper spray,
an alarm keychain,
and a window breaker
from her mother.
she was grateful.
i told my mother, she laughed
and said,
you don’t need that.
i didn’t know how to tell her that
sometimes it feels like the chances
of me getting raped
are less of an if and more of a when.
3 snap
i was 9 when i first thought
i want to die,
12 when i first made myself
bleed,
15 when i started to
drown,
17 when i could’ve
died.
i’m not sure when i started to
hate myself.
4 pop
let us have our moments,
let us have the childhood
we were never allowed to enjoy.
let us be carefree, let us have nights
talking and laughing like tomorrow
isn’t around the corner, like adulthood
isn’t creeping onto us like death
costumed in gold and lies.
we laugh with stars in our eyes,
scars on our skin, gouges
in our souls, our hands red raw
from clinging to the last scraps of
youth.
sooo i had something else planned because valentine's day and i wanted to put something a little lighter but. in light of some stuff i found out about my college, i wanted to post this one. i also wrote this one pretty recently so i'm a bit biased but i do like it. the section titles and stuff were fun to play around with and i liked how everything came together.
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