Equality

We live in a world

where the victims are living

behind closed doors

while the predators

walk freely on the streets

this world tells us to stop

screaming for equality

while giving us more guns,

more anti-abortion laws.

no sex before marriage

but if you didn’t know

the differences between

consent and fear

how could you say no?

when will this end?

t.l.

I am

now I know

I can’t listen to people say

shitty things about me

and let them get away.

I am not “too fat”.

I am not “too skinny”.

I am not “too serious”.

I am not “immature”.

I am not “spoiled”.

I am not “weak”.

I am not “wasting my life”.

I am not the images in your head.

I am real.

And I won’t let you do that again.

t.l.

sometimes, it’s easier to just laugh it off. They were just joking. Stop being so serious. I’d rather be serious than doubting my self-worth every again.

Drizzle

You were just living your life

and someone came to tell you,

“Why? Why aren’t you miserable?

You should be. You’re neither married

nor have a stable job. Your sexuality

is the end of you.”

“Why choose the difficult road

with thorns and poisonous spiders

when you can have it easy?

Why did you sail further

into the Bermuda Triangle

and get swallowed by the big sea

when you can settle down here?“

“Why do you have to be

this way? Nobody likes it

you’re not twenty three

It’s time to be an adult

and behave like one.”

I’ll say, the Bermuda Triangle

is alienating and frightening to you,

doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist

doesn’t mean we can’t live in it

doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting for.

if we could get through the tsunami

and make it out alive

why would we care about you

or anyone trying to warn us

that a drizzle is coming our way?

t.l.

It’s okay to be misunderstood. As long as you believe in yourself, there are people who will do the same.

Dreams

I sometimes had dreams where my teeth fall off. Especially my front teeth. I didn’t have to try hard, I just pushed them with my tongue and they came off. I panicked, blamed everything in my life. I couldn’t bear the fact that my teeth was gone and now I have to face the world with a hole in my smile. I have to fix them right away.

If only I knew how to fix the hole in my soul, rather than running away from it. Just because people couldn’t see it, doesn’t mean it is invisible. I can always feel it, coming and going like waves. But I did nothing and just kept on living until the whole sand castle is washed away.

t.l.

We tend to know how to fix the outside and not the inside.

Storm

The trees don’t blame

the rain for falling too hard

The fish don’t blame

the water for running too deep.

you are only witnessing

the pain, the sadness, and the grief.

those things that happened to you

they are not who you are.

they made you stronger

gave you a new skin

but they’re not there to stay

and neither are you.

as long as the wind still blows

you’d grow a pair of wings

to fly through the storm.

t.l.