Why I have worked with young people for 7 years and will continue to do so...

Thank you, youth

You gave this girl back her childhood

A childhood prohibited

A childhood tenated by a crossfire of

flying plates and crashing words

Sprinkled red, holes sunken in the wall

Tears on the windowsill, punished what for?

One birthday 9, the next turned 19

Trying to make sense

What was the need for fences?

Innocence extracted to be replaced with an intravenus

feed of constant suspicion

A little girl that learned to shut up fast, her words didn't matter,

a little girl sputtering "I'm sorry's", but what for?

Trying to balance an equation that never equaled out-

prayer at the dinner table, Sunday best at church, but how

did that ever equal out with what happened at tiptop 

Thank you, youth

You gave this girl back her childhood,

unlacing the mummified, the little girl unlived

Laughing from the heart, to be innocent, 

to live and speak without restraint

To glow with curiosity, to ask questions

To live life with eyes wide big

hands and heart open