The children are starving. 
Their hearts are hungry, and their voices are raw. 
They crowd the streets, screaming to be heard. 
They say our phones are all we care for. No, our phones are our escape. 
Social media hears our pleas.  
Where presidents fail, social media begs for our voices to be heard. 
A pandemic, global warming, racism. 
What will it take for our voices to be heard? 
I applaud you, Gen Z. 
In the face of adversity, we do what world leaders won’t. 
I fear you, Gen Z. 
What will we do when we are unleashed on the world? 
We are making real change. 

​We spend our whole lives being told that we can do anything,
as long as we do our best.
But what if our best isn’t good enough?
It doesn’t feel like your best if you’re comparing
your life to others' lives.
Your journey to others’ journeys.

Written in the style of Lorrie Moore. ​

When you’re in first grade, your mom will tell you to pick an instrument. “To be a well rounded person, you shouldn’t just be good at school, you should have skills in other areas of life too," your mom will say. You will only be, like, six or seven years old, so you won’t really get it. You’ll just shrug your shoulders and hope that being a well rounded person doesn’t include playing sports too. Off the top of your head, you pick the violin because you don’t want to play something you have to blow into. ​

when Waltzing Alone in an abandoned ballroom
is deemed insanity
                i will set myself alight
dousing myself in belladonna-infused gasoline,
perfuming my bones like death peeling back my skin

with the tulle of my skirt wet with fallen rain and
unfulfilled prophecies, words caught from northern
winds
invention created from these           newborn hands,
calluses on the fingertips.
pieces of history forced down my throat, tasting like
raw coffee beans and broken lipsticks
my character shoes                        prancing on marble
the statues on the wall judging my form,

now & then i’ll remember how i felt before
she saw me:
a stray planet hurtling out of orbit

eighteen years of grabbing at passing debris
left my fingernails cracked and bloody
i cursed my weak hands

until she, gravity, pulled me
gently in.

Being sixteen
Is like a clap of thunder
The gun shot just before
The race begins.
​
It’s all excitement, all pressure
The constant grind
To transform from a piece of coal
Into a diamond.

there’s something about the lakes
and the way her eyelids damn me 
like crosses lodged in my throat
and i never believed in sacrifice 
but maybe the lord was a queen
fabrics caught in our static sun
and he simply ripped apart
bloody and bare and beaten
and black eyes aren’t black 
they’re like sickly peacocks 
but i’m meant to be a rooster ​

there is a little light at the end of the street
and it flickers like a man-made love.
it dies
and revives. tall shadows of gypsum gloom
slink closer in silence, far too little left to
haunt. the night hiccups slowly, but
there is no moonlight between cupped hands.
no serene lullabies hanging taut between
lovers, between flat plain-pain of empty breasts.
you carry sandalwood in your pockets and the
entire city stinks of the forbidden. listen to me
sometime; bathtub pipe dreams cemented in
cold glass, cold whistle. i carry far too much
rhapsody in milk bottles that rot on my counter-tops.
there is no space for you in my refrigerator
but sometimes, i wish for ice-cubes that taste like
you.
there is a little light at the end of the street
and now i'm switching it off.

​I never really saw the stars, or the universe at all. Just because it was covered by darkness and fear. With its horrible sight of evil, it changed. And when I said it changed, my friend, it did. Because of hope and the lightness that came back. I wanted to wash all the sickness and make it clean again. With its white and beautiful colors of light, humanity began reassuring that everything is going to be okay again. It took one day at a time to remove all the darkness because there was a lot of it. But if we have hope in it. We will make it go away much faster. We want to make this thing go away. On the 365th day, it was gone, the darkness was gone and everything evil was gone. If that darkness ever comes back, we will come together as one and we will fight it away. But on that night we saw the stars and the universe again. It was magnificent. The glittery and the white stars that shimmer with happiness and excitement. With the universe, we saw the wonderful white and greyish moon that glistens in the sky. And the sky was amazing and it was a navy blue color with the white and puffy clouds. That was the day we saw the stars and the universe again. 

​I always wonder what it is like to be someone else. I was always a quiet kid, someone who didn’t talk much and preferred a book over people. Until now.

I guess being mute was boring after a while. Sure, I wasn’t completely mute, I still talked, but it seemed like the world hated me. Remember that feeling when everyone in your class got ice cream and you didn’t? It kind of feels like that. I was left out.

I will keep inking the paper that has been presented before me until I have nothing to extract, until I have nothing. But there is everything to write, everything to know, and beyond that is what is yet to befall upon many of us in the midst of this pandemic. The deeply-rooted issue has regressed for the umpteenth time and its reactions have surpassed its limit, its patience, to the nth degree. History is repeating itself in the open, as a maddeningly viralized dimension of America has resurfaced. This year is a year we did not ask for. This year is a retelling of what should remain in the past, but has progressed and persevered to the point that society is actually moving backward. This year is an affirmation of how pronounced the problem is, and many have failed to acknowledge it actively. ​

​“George Floy(D) unrest: Pol(I)ce out in force in major cities to tamp down on riots as curfews take effect” - Fox News “Riots, looting after George Flord death could deal fatal blow to businesses reeling from (V)(I)rus outbreak” - Fox Business “Protests Over George Floyd (D)(E)ath( )Block (T)raffic, Reac(H) Trump Tower” - The N(E)w York Ti(M)es( ) “A(M)erican carnage: These aren’t pr(O)tests - they’(R)(E) riots.( )Someone must en(D) the lawlessness” -USA TODAY “R(I)ots against police (V)(I)olence aren’t the an(S)wer” – Vox “Reth(I)nking the Ri(O)ts” - The Chicago Maroo(N) “Troubling( )videos capture L.A. police violence a(M)id prot(E)sts” - Los (A)ngeles Times “State, federal age(N)t(S) investigating( )‘violent extre(M)ists’ c(O)nnected to Austin p(R)ot(E)sts” - KXAN( ) “(M)ass pr(O)tests a(N)d mayh(E)m continue into a sixth night; thousands nationwide are arrested during weekend” - Washington Post “Wh(Y)( )Violent Protests Work” 

The thoughts in my head danced to the walkabout beats
Marching and stomping as my head throbbed
I tried not to think, to keep the memories away
I tried not to blink, to keep the tears in
Then he tapped me and asked, "How are you?"
The pain I had stomached all these years
Tore right through my gut
The excruciating sting traveled down my spine as reality hit me hard
But with a deep breath, I swept it all in
My facade built up its defence walls in an instant
"I'm fine."