(Tried to use a bit more alliteration here. Don't particularly like this one, but I finished it so please tear it to pieces. Thanks!)
You’ve started to believe the background music for your life is silent
Just a row of pauses in the middle of words that never ends
You’ve gotten the idea that maybe those kids in middle school were right
That maybe you are useless.
Because you were Character C in every class play.
The one picked last in sports or even just forgotten.
And the only one to stay inside for Lunch.
You’re worried that the loneliness written like a grade on your heart makes you undesirable
So you hide your hands.
And you only speak with whispers.
Make yourself so small that maybe they won’t notice you collapsing under your own doubt.
You cry in summer because even the mosquitos don’t want you.
And you’ve started to fear that your stutter and your asthma make all the decisions for you
You c-can’t go outside today.
Don’t sing in the shower, nobody wants to hear you.
Hide your smile, your teeth aren’t perfect.
Lately, you’ve even tried to imagine yourself away
Let the last wisps of your confidence fade
And your ribs crack, brittle and bleached
Because you were only ever a skeleton to the world
So settle into dust and let the wind take you.
But that’s all wrong.
Those empty spaces were filled with breaks that made you eloquent.
The kids in middle school never even knew you,
They never bothered to see that while you couldn’t act or run as fast as everyone else,
You were acing every test, and befriending the knights in storybooks
Who taught you how to be brave when the dragon in front of you was everything holding you back
Or how every day you would open your lunch and find
“I love you” written on your napkins
And the mosquitos didn’t want you because you were too busy playing with songbirds
They loved your voice
You were the lead soloist in every performance,
The shining star of the group,
The only one with teeth strong enough to fight off the predators that would take that from you.
And the wind
The wind was a lover ready to sweep you off your feet and whisk you to lands you could only dream of
You were the only one brave enough to let it take you.
So take the stones they threw and make a grave for your fears.
The gum they stuck in your hair will become the concrete for your convictions.
The cuts on your arms and legs are the stripes every tiger needs.
And each time you feel like this world just isn’t right for you
Remember that you are all of the above, and everything not yet written.
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