Lion

Her voice never mattered

Scattered were the seeds of her thoughts when she wrote

Notes to God, notes about how she’d end it all if she had the courage

Never encouraged to be more, just to be less, she was too much

Touched, kissed inappropriately in a closet by a little girl who’d had it done to her

Referred to as “your daughter,” forever the offspring of inconvenience

You’ve probably seen this movie

I’ll be a “new me” she said on the first day of every school year

Sometimes new here, sometimes not, but she couldn’t escape herself

She couldn’t escape the wealth of insecurity that surrounded her unremarkable existence

All she could do was sit with -- her thoughts

So she wrote them down

Notebooks abounding with her innermost sentiments

Eminent was the gift that she locked away in the secret spaces of her room

She bloomed on those pages, she -- mattered

Until one day it was shattered like the glass of a vandalized auto

Her motto “whatever can go wrong, will…”

An unremarkable box, unlike her remarkable thoughts -- stolen

A million words woven from experience, gone

Wronged was this girl whose voice never mattered anyway

A gift (again) -- locked away

Until -- the day when she began to weave again

And a feeling, akin to that first, began to fill her heart

And the art of her words filled her mouth

As she spouted truth like geysers

Making liars of those who sought to quiet her

Her voice a riot to those who silenced her

And she spoke for others whose voices never mattered

Scattering seeds over them

Pulling weeds out of them

Yelling “We need all of them!”

Until a sound arose from the masses

As they practiced their unfamiliar utterances of outrage

Uncaged are those lions

And if you listen closely… you can still hear their roars