Things I'm Terrified Of

The things I'm terrified of

Make up a very long list:

An entire forest burning for weeks on end

The ocean slowly drowning in itself

The world turning a blind eye

To that 5-year-old girl in the next city who was

Raped and murdered and sliced apart

And discarded like so many bits

Of a plastic doll that nobody loved anymore

I'm terrified of cities that have been

Silenced, their children's throats ripped

Out and thrown into a river that now

Runs red with their innocence

I'm terrified of the man in the grocery shop

Two blocks from my house who looks

Me up and down even when I'm wearing

My ratty pajamas, I'm terrified of

How he looks

At me, like he's a starving man and I'm

A ready-to-eat meal

I'm terrified of mothers who say

They've found "good matches" for

Their daughters because of two nights later

Those girls will come crying back home

With cuts and bruises all over them and

I'm so fucking terrified of the mothers that

Send them right back without a second thought

I'm terrified of fathers who tell their sons

That they need to toughen up

And that tears are a fucking waste of time,

Fathers who raise their

Sons to look at girls like they're pieces

Of meat, fathers who raise

Sons like the man in the grocery store

I'm terrified of the forest fire

In my chest, I'm terrified of my bones

Dissolving into ash, I'm terrified of men

Who kill men and think nothing of

It, I'm terrified of men who kill

This planet and think nothing

Of it, I'm terrified of men who kill their

Lovers and wives and sisters and daughters

From the inside out

AND THINK NOTHING OF IT

I'm terrified of the media who highlight

All the things wrong in the world

For three fucking days before they

Move onto the next best thing

I'm terrified of children being reduced

To dust in another

Country because there's not enough food,

Not enough water to spare but look at us

Wasting all of that down here

I'm terrified of people who think it's

Okay to put a loaded gun in a child's

Hand and let them figure out how to

Pull the trigger on themselves

I'm terrified of my voice being

Silenced when I say things like this,

My father tells me I'll get into trouble

For screaming so loud, my mother tries

To shut me up, she tells me I'm like

Her pressure cooker that needs to release some

Steam but she tries to

Get it out of me by pushing

It deeper inside and it reminds me

Of her brother who pushed himself

Into me when I was 12, and is

That all people are capable of? Pushing

All of their fear and rage and agony deeper

Into boxes, they refuse to open? Last night

I could hear Pandora shifting in her

Grave and look, all these unopened boxes are

Now

Hunting a ghost

And isn't it so fucked up

That most of them aren't made

Of cardboard, they're made of people

And out of all the things I'm terrified of,

People scare me the most,

People and their nonchalance

And their rage

And their boxes

And I'm scared out of my wits

Of what we're doing to ourselves

And the fact that we either don't notice

Or don't seem to fucking care.