We’re hiding behind smiles and promises, behind ‘I love you’s and ‘How do you do’s. We’re breaking and crumbling and screaming so loud no one can hear, and we’re smiling. We’re smiling because that’s all we’ve been taught to do, not how to confide, or how to repair. Only how to fall apart behind walls of titanium while the world goes on. We’re taught not to be burdens, to stay silent, to not trouble others.
The little boys are taught that crying is bad, that showing weakness, feminity is bad. They grow up learning that the only emotions left for them to embrace are cold smiles and misplaced pride. They grow up calloused and bruised, locking everything away behind a front of masculinity and disguised terror.
The little girls are taught not to stand up, not to speak for themselves. They learn that they’re porcelain dolls with too wide smiles etched onto their faces while they scream and shout and cry and yell with the ferocity of a dying star. They grow up desiring perfection and waiting on others, wondering if their fragile fronts will ever break.
The little kids are taught that stupid questions are not to be tolerated, that the wonders of the imaginary are to be stowed away in the depths of the forgotten. They grow up, and as they do they get beaten down, told to sit down, to mind their place, to be the best, but not out of place. They learn what’s needed of them and how to provide, they learn that they’re just the next product of the assembly line, and any sign of imperfection will get them sent back to the factory.
We’re being told who to be and what to think. Told how to exist and why. We’re being taught we don’t matter unless we fit the mold. We’re being taught that we don’t understand anything, we’re little kids, with tiny minds and tiny, insignificant thoughts. Our opinions are irrelevant unless we grow up to be a white, straight, cisgender man. We’re taught that we are not worthy until they deem we are.
We’re worth more than we’re led to believe. There’s more to us than cheer captain and star football player. There’s more to us than makeup and battle scars. There’s more to us than barbie dolls and football trophies. There’s so much more to us than that.
We’re filled to the brim with thoughts and ideas and love. We’re scribbling page after page of ways we’d like the world to change so that we can survive amidst this tidal wave of expectations. We’re screaming so loud about how we want to survive and exist that the world is struck deaf.
We cannot fill the mold that society stuffs us in. We cannot fit through the people-shaped holes that lead to success in the adult world. We are not perfect. We are striving to be amidst our self-destruction but we can’t.
