3 Things I Know Are True

A Poem by Justice Smith

Something I wrote for school.

One

In this world there is hate.

It's why we debate,

and fight

all day and night.

It's like we fight to survive

while others sit there,

watching us,

and they thrive.

It's a dog eat dog world,

and sometimes

you can't see through all the fog,

and you choke on the smoke

of the big title

that's telling us a tidal

wave of lies.

And we don't know the truth.

Two

We discriminate

against that which we love,

and that which we hate.

We discriminate against one another,

someone's friend,

somebody's brother,

somebody's sister,

against the emo girl

or the f*g

or the one kid that just didn't fit in quite right.

Not knowing that what you said

keeps them up at night.

Through the scars and the tears

through those words and our fears.

We're all freaks in our own way

we just divide by those who chastise

and tell lies

to make themselves feel better,

and those who try to

heal broken hearts

and shattered dreams

with hands that hide all they've seen.

Because we know they're keen

on what happens and what goes on.

We just hope

they think it's all a con.

'Cause it's easier healing others pain

than sharing ours.

Three

Society is something that we make.

But all too often,

we make the mistake,

of using it to define us,

and not something to refine us.

And brother,

I know how words hurt,

and lies hurt more.

And when you were down,

I was there at your door.

Telling you to get up

because you're not done.

And when you cried over your scars,

and fears,

and lies that over all those years

you started to believe.

I sat with you,

brushed off your tears,

and I cried too.

Because this world

is what we make it.

And what people don't understand,

is that to get help,

you just have to say that you need a hand.

And instead of truth,

and love,

we fill it with lies,

and we swear to the sky above

that we will bring change.

But we're too scared to do

what needs to be done.

And as a result,

a girl sits at night,

without a single light,

because she doesn't see

what she's about to do.

And as she starts to cry,

she grabs the pills that take away the pain,

because she wants to gain

peace

and quite

from the lies outside.

But she takes a few too many

as she pours them into her mouth.

And as she does so,

she thinks how life would be better,

if things could change.

Because in the society

she grew up in,

it was OK

to pick on the kid who had nobody

to go home to at night.

And how it was OK

to fight that queer because

he grew up with two dads

and no mom.

And as she lies there dying,

she stops crying.

Because she thinks nobody will care.

And as she says her last goodbyes,

I just wish that she

could see our world

through my eyes.

Author's Note

Questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, etc. I'm all ears.

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Featured Review

TLK

" that's telling us a tidle" -- erroneous space at the beginning and also typo.

I like how you sum up the odd-bods in Two with "or the one kid that just didn't fit in quite right." That is perfect placed -- if said before, it would dull the impact; at the end it skews what has come before and shows me the similarities between all outsiders.

First fives lines of Three are excellent. They would make an excellent epigram on their own.

Feminist nitpick: you use the word 'brother' twice, but never sister. I feel this poem would hit its purpose even better if it was equanimous in its addressing of the audience.

The last three lines are chillingly plaintive. I feel like I have really gone somewhere reading this poem -- from acceptable statements of fact to how, if they were applied, they could radically change someone's existence.