M. Hank

It's not all the grownups, 

But it's too many. 

Nothing is how it should be.  

The world is heating.  

The government collapsing. 

Yet we, 

We are only overreacting. 

Silence spreads. 

It blankets churning mouths like grazing cows come frost.

Never has the silence echoed so. 

Girlhood is texting your crush because it's late at night and you don't know any better. 

Girlhood is staring way too hard at the prettiest girl in class. 

Thump thump 

You see nothing 

through your stale pride 

Your black and white lenses 

Your punishments and rewards 

Your fake smiles and deceit 

Thu thump 

It lives in cupped hands

Around sorry ears,

Behind closed mouths shut up tight,

A wrench in the steel factory gears.

A hidden prism refracting light,

Shining through the cracks in firmly pressed fingers.

i always have been, ever since the label of

"gifted" was mantled above my head in neon letters, 

proudly displaying me to a world where

mediocrity was rejected &