"They dont see how much I’m pretending."

Alone in a Crowd of People
Jessica D. Vega, age 22.
Jersey City, NJ.

Alone in a crowd of people
They see me
but they don't see the real me
They see my smile
but they don't see how fake it is
They dont see how much I’m pretending
pretending to be happy

Alone in a crowd of people
Knowing I’ll never belong
never fit in to any group
always alone
always forgotten
always invisible

Alone in a crowd of people
Wearing this mask so well
hiding all my emotions
hiding all my doubts
hiding all my fears
hiding all my scars

Alone in a crowd of people
no on really knows
no one really cares
no one really understands
how I feel
how I really feel
and the way I feel
is alone in a crowd of people


I feel like I've been wasting time.
Jessica D. Vega, age 22.
Jersey City, NJ.

I never got to do the things
that I really wanted to do.
I wonder if it’s to late to start now.
Even if I did start now,
I wouldn’t know how or where to start.

I feel like I’m trapped in a box
that’s sealed tight.
I can’t get out.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I’m suffocating.

I scream,
but nobody hears.
I cry,
but nobody sees.
Because I’m trapped in this box.
And they can’t really tell what’s wrong with me,
because all they hear from me is silence.

So, how can I do the things I really want do,
when I can’t even get out of this box that
I’ve been trapped in for years.

At last, new poems!

Sorry, folks. It's been a really long time. But here are several new posts for YMMFLA! Check them out. Post comments about what you think. Send in your own work!

Anonymous.
[break her down]

Like a flower in the sky, I fall gently, creating disturbance beneath me and natural disaster across the seas. I take my place on the stone ledge, fixing my eyes on the edge, begging some part of me not to go through with it, all the while knowing I won’t do it. I witness fear enter in, starting to call revenge my closest friend, daring the eyes to see all they have done. I pinch myself, this is no dream, catch a deep breath, finding in me, searching deeper for more meaning – nothing. Getting closer, feet are trembling, my heart keeps beating; now its racing, somehow being torn between, never knowing if it is worth it to stay alive. I hold my head above the water, those who follow, somehow stronger; though they stumble they find footing absent from my own. No one sees me, the sun betrays me, I jump into the black beneath leaving behind my last words and a final goodbye - not even a shadow. I am beauty, see me falling? Catch me.


Latoya Brathwaite, Age 18. Barbados.
Suicide

I smashed the mirror on my bathroom wall
And watched my reflection shatter
Depressed, sad, ugly girl...she was gone
The memories, the revolting pain, it all ceased to matter
I smeared on some makeup
I dyed my hair red
And that night...that night,I left her behind
Lost within the sharp shards of glass, her face, once was mine

My words dripped with forged bouts of happiness,
Sentences punctuated with the whitest "Oh-emm-gee"
Ten, eleven, twelve...ficticious tales of a wild, exciting life
I laughed until I cried, I cried on the inside, inevitably
I signed on to Facebook
I added my new "friends"
And when in pain I told myself, she would fade after a while
So I drowned her out in sleeping pills and bullied my mouth to smile

The moon hid behind the cloud, the crickets screamed
The night I lost my virginity
When it was over, he pushed me off the bed and laughed when I started to cry
Where were my friends
I felt ugly again
Depressed
Lonely
In my hand, the butcher knife gleamed
Before I could carve a line on my wrist...I saw her reflection
The knife distorted the image but I recognised her
Clarity replaced insanity...the wrongs I did to her,came flooding back to me

I made her overdose on the wild life
Evertime I pretended to be like them, the noose tightened around her neck
I stabbed her in the heart when I gave away my innocence
Clarity.
Her reflection would always be mine
When the knife slid from my hand...I realised, I had already murdered
Me.


Joshua Diehl, age 18. Denton, Texas.
Concerning Inadequacy

Inspiration,

How you torture me as a flipping switch
Turning swiftly, repeatedly, from marriage to suicide
Between art and happiness, I cannot decide
But sorrow never seems to kick me into the ditch

My heartstrings have become sanguinary
But this could never be a fault of yours
Lord, I do not think this has been a dream of sorts
Although I am not certain of anything, anymore

No longer shaped like a cradle, both hands on the rusting rail,
Barely shuffling up perished steps
I forgot to take the time to reconstruct a liar’s bed
No wonder I come home only to the coffee she left

Time will spread her wings and fly
If you let her stare too long into the sky
I do not think your love will fix everything
But God, how I would quite love to try


A.M. Young, age 22. Jenkintown, PA.
Molestation

Binds me to the past, like a pair of steel clasped hand cuffs
Tightened to my wrists, I feel them squeezing the blood
Blood that should be flowing from my hands to my heart

My heart beats rapidly as I am linked to the past barely surviving
Laughing at the notion of thriving ever even considered
Soulless it seems from the lies of the deep abyss

Light indigo lines ran rapid in the child’s eyes
Or were they dark like the color of the soil
Forgotten now the simple description of the doer

Look what ignorance has done to the Molested
Ignorance of the molested and the doer
Ignorance of the guardian, the watcher, the closeness

Binds me to the past, like a shackle of a slave
Crippled I am soul, body, and mind
My innocence forced out

Driven out of the soul like a whipped, beaten horse
A stallion beautiful once, but now a simple ass
Loaded with the stress of a strain not its fault

HA! Says the molested, HE! Says the ass
I am wounded, forgotten, overlooked
I am bound to this past, the emotion of a tumultuous storm

The storm rages on and pours down over my body
Cleans dear lord of all my oppression
“Blessed are they who mourn,

For they will be comforted”
I can only pray
The binding of the my soul to the molested


Anonymous.
Little Word

If I were going to write you
it would only be one word—
hi.
I’d print it so small
that it would be barely
visible, just a whisper
of lead on paper
saying
I am still here.

"Life still goes on."

Anonymous.

leftover.

“Tower your last chances, make them endless; draw the line, limitless, and pretend the world goes to sleep when you do – stare down and confess your fear of heights, of everything – because you need rest. Your body is its own worn ages, matted at the seams from attempted war's rages, stringing comfort like a chandelier. Light up this tower, with smoke blowing aimlessly in any given direction, whichever way you speak to it; letting you and yourself know you are all alone in this darkest night as the world falls asleep. They make it through the night and you just breathe in the familiar taste of fear, which lingers on like a slow song, playing to remind you life still goes on, even if you stop breathing. Even after your heart stops beating and this tower falls, they will dream of your endless, limitless fear and pretend like it isn’t real, like it won’t be there when they wake up. As fear fills everyone’s cup, you tell yourself once more that you are alone and allow yours to overflow.”

"Everything circles around and back again."

Anonymous, age 17.

Guilty of Goodbye

I need to get away and
I play the radio loud
When I drive in my car
Because it makes me feel less alone

And you are in the seat beside me
But you are not here
So I wave at everyone that we pass,
And it makes me feel less alone

My worth falls out, dignity worn thin
Everything circles around and back again
I cut the chains, I cut the switch,
And no longer do I have to feel alone

There may be no shoes larger
Than the ones I have outgrown
But, in time, you might understand
That nothing feels more like home