Things I'm Terrified Of
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.