Better off left alone.

 

Better off left alone

-Cleverquacks

 
A child sits alone in the principal’s room,
He’s waiting impatiently for the day’s new doom,
He’s in here this time for punching a kid in the head,
Now rushed to the hospital, floating near death.
 
He’s suspended, threatened with a fate much worse still,
Expelled with the next complaint, his record now filled,
But no one ever bothered to ask why he was this way,
He’s trapped in the past, in an unforgettable day.
 
A young boy sits alone, huddled between pillows,
His parents are yelling, their arguments were bellowed,
He covers his ears, and lets his tears fall down,
That night, sleep embraced him, and he dreamt that he drowned.
 
In oceans of salt, a soul melting, dripping down,
With young eyes that looked far too old in a deep and constant frown,
People say the eyes speak louder than any of your words,
A film unravelling when your voice leaves, like a flock of flying birds.
 
This is why he never dared to look people in the eye,
Afraid he’d reveal his secrets, that they’d float up and fly,
Through the breeze, like leaves, as fast as wildfire,
Society loves to spread rumours, while the victim hides desires.
 
Burning brighter than the sun,
A mother’s love, to be a father’s son,
Not just related by blood, but related by the bonds of the heart,
To share a smile, a laugh, a hug, a place that’s seen as a hearth.
Warm flames that hold you tight, and smell like safer days,
This is what he longs for, if only there was a way;
 
To love and be loved,
To see and be seen,
To heal and be healed,
To care and be taken care of,
 
To hurt and be helped,
To cry and be held,
To discover and to roam,
To be free, yet be home.
 
Life had taught him that nothing is easy,
To get what you want, you might have to feel queasy,
But he’s been scared for as long as he could recall,
Like standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting for the fall.
 
He’s reckless because no one taught him how to live,
Love was never taken, and he’d rather not give,
For he wasn’t so certain he knew how to love
Never had he seen it, no matter how much he looked above.
 
“So, really,” he thought, as he sat outside the room,
“It’s really not my fault, for not knowing what to do,”
How to treat others, or how to respect,
He had seen that it was something you could never really get.
 
If only someone helped the boy find his way around,
Told him it was all going to be alright, that he was safe and sound,
That there were people who loved him, and wished he was safe,
Unfortunately, though, help had arrived a bit too late.
 
He’d lost all hope, shut everything down,
Left the cave he’d called 'home', where he waited to be found,
Some children out there have to raise themselves,
Crying to sleep at night, bottled screams kept on shelves.
 
Inside their hearts, inside their heads,
They fuel the small flame, and make sure it’s fed,
With dreams that seem so impossibly far away,
But maybe they could have that too, one day.
 
When you’re young, they assume that you don’t know pain,
Well, we feel real emotions, and they definitely aren’t feigned,
They think you don’t know what they say in hushed tones,
We pretend we don’t know, that we’re lost in our phones.
 
And as he walks home, the lectures longer and heavier,
Settling on his shoulders, they become a thick barrier,
Between what he’d done, and the reason as to why,
No one ever asked what happened on his side.
 
Or maybe they did, and he was too scared to tell,
Afraid they’d be angry, that they’d start to yell,
No one knew that this time, he didn’t start the fight,
All he wanted to do was leave, or to just take flight.
 
The words thrown his way had hit too close to home,
“Has no one ever loved you? Taken care of you?”
And the truth was
yes.
 
In silence, pain and suffering,
Through droughts and through floods,
Through unbearably bright days, and the darkest of nights,
He’d raised himself.
 
All
on
his
own.
 
But no one could ever know,
Because some secrets were better off left alone.