Poem collections

the kids aren't alright

i knew a girl with crooked teeth
who threatened to slit her throat
whose parents refused her birth control
and a man came through her bedroom window one day
and he raped her
she wanted to die

i knew a boy with a rocky relationship with his dad
he turned to pills & alcohol
and one night drunk & high
he was able to express his true emotions
he wanted to die

i knew a girl with mutilated arms
her dad beat & raped her
she could cry at the drop of a pin
fragile as a kicked puppy
& she blacked out & cut herself so deep she needed stitches
she didn't value her life

i knew a boy who thought he didn't have a problem
he took too much ativan & was hospitalized
or was it some other drug, not that it mattered
he said he didn't need to be there
he thought he was fine
but that's what we all thought at the beginning of it all - right?

i knew a girl with an unavailable mother
so she was the caretaker of her younger siblings
she was raped just when walking through her neighborhood
she got an abortion & called herself a murderer
she once took a bunch of tylenol & by the time she was picked up in the ambulance
she was already unconscious
isn't it obvious she wanted to die?

i knew a boy with bulimia nervosa
he described it as being raped by his toothbrush
he screamed & screamed when his boyfriend left him
he wanted to be sick rather than live

i knew a girl with anorexia & compulsive exercise addiction
she couldn't even sit still
she wrote about how she thought she didn't have a problem
like the rest of us really did
& she relapsed over & over after discharge

i knew a girl with an anger problem
who was a victim of an abusive relationship
she couldn't control herself from taking her fear & rage out
on everyone around her
& she only kind of admitted it once
but I knew she wanted to die

i knew a boy who didn't fit in
he thought he found someone who wanted to be with him
but she humiliated him as did everyone else before
so he tried to hang himself
& we still made fun of him in the hospital
of course he wanted to die

i knew a girl with anorexia & bulimia
who was addicted to self harm
she tried to kill herself when she was just 14, then 15
then tried a handful of more times after that
she wouldn't talk about what she had been through
& she hated herself
she wanted to die
& she was me

but weren't we all these kids once upon a time?
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