nobody will listen to what you say, so write

What's the point of talking if nobody will listen to what you say? That's generally my philosophy, and very rarely does anyone want to listen. Like the loser blowing me kisses and calling me slurs on my way to class, he doesn't give a damn if I'm actually a lesbian. Still, words are better than actions, and I'm grateful we're not in the same English class. I'm grateful the agonizingly long day of harassment by peers and ignorance by grownups is almost to an end. Almost, but not yet.

The assignment is written on the board. Mr. Brown shows us examples of motifs, but I spend most of class planning in my head what my response to the homework will be. The assignment is to write a poem that explores your inner voice (so in my case my only voice), using at least one motif, and at least one metaphor or simile. He's been teaching us about motifs, so I know that’s the point he wants our poetry to get, but metaphors get into my head first.

Metaphorically, what was a metaphor that could represent my inner voice? My mind goes to birds in a rainstorm, how some flock together whereas others bathe in puddles, how some fly effortlessly while others struggle. But no, birds are too broad of a category, plus, like, albatross exist and I'm not including them in my poem.

Maybe an upturned log? All kinds of creatures I could use as metaphors live underneath logs. I decide that will be my focus when I'm startled by the bell ringing. School is over for the day, finally! And I have an assignment I don't completely hate.

On the bus and once I'm home, I try to forget about school altogether, losing myself in whump fanfiction where characters my age are homeless and hiding that from adults, being superheroes, basically I spend all afternoon reading Spiderman whump. And commenting, of course. I may be speechless IRL but I have plenty to contribute online.

 I switch to trying my homework right on time, right when Dad gets home from work. He orders us in pizza when he sees me doing math worksheets. Get what I hate most out of the way first. I don't think about Mr. Brown's class until after the pizza has been consumed and my history essay outlined.

My Inner Voice

Start with a log, a dead chunk of tree

That has been glued to the leaf litter of the forest. 

Me, I'm the log, I think. 

I delete the last line, then the entirety of the work. That's not how a poem should start. T. S. Eliot didn't say start, he just started comparing the sky to a patient etherized upon a table, streets following the narrator and their lover like an argument. Everything in my life feels like an argument. I stopped speaking because nobody would listen, how the fuck am I supposed to write a poem about my inner voice? That's my only voice right now, with the weather making breathing difficult enough without adding speech. Am I not entitled to some goddamn privacy?

No, nobody is in high school. Everyone is a mandated reporter so I can't write about what my inner voice actually has whispering in the back of my mind at all times constantly, so what can I write about that would fulfill the assignment? What metaphor could address being broken? I think back to my log idea.

What if instead of a log, a natural breaking of a branch that time wore into its own entity, my voice was a strip of back forcefully peeled off a tree?

My voice is torn bark from a tree, defiled by a child

as I was one myself when

I broke into no longer live wood.

Instead,

 I stare at what I have typed. Is this too descriptive? Too - I used a metaphor, Mr. Brown won't know what kind of trauma I'm referring to, just that I am referring to one. I should be safe in the vagueness, no matter how much my body can feel - broke is a neutral word, what truly happened was I was torn into, I was - doesn't matter, I'm just trying to finish a homework assignment.

Instead, my voice becomes a barrier between

the soil, ground, and harsh exposure to air, rain, sunlight

Only what is the soil? the air is obviously criticism, sunlight the cruel physicality others may use against me, rain is rain, a metaphor for sadness. Perhaps the soil is my soul, I think. Maybe I should give up and work on this more later. I don't.

Beneath are skittering centipedes, brief flashes of thoughts unspoken

spiders weaving webs more intricate thoughts

and when the voice is overturned, they skitter away, startled out by an errant question

or poetry assignment, though that may also be the ant colony

of hundreds, maybe thousands of barely existent moments when I think about

opening my mouth, using my words, but then think again about ants

I remember learning about in science class, how ants communicate and basically have societies like human societies, complete with outcasts, albeit ones created by human scientists in a lab.

and if one is painted with a phermone, she can be tricked into

 believing she is already dead, placed in the trash heap.

Bark does not contain a full ant colony, as there's no trash heap here

just webs, centipedes, and also snails

images that flash through when the bark is upturned

sunlight exposing, coercing slender stalks to moving towards darker areas

Now that I'm thinking about it, I hate myself again. I try sharing my thoughts with ChatGPT and get back this garbage: Your silence isn’t a shield that will protect you in the long run; it’s just a way of hiding the pain without addressing it. I don't need protection in the long run. I shouldn't need protection in the long run, only when I tell ChatGPT that, the robot spews out platitudes about trauma and how speaking is necessary for healing from the experience.

Speaking shouldn't be necessary - my inner voice poem is doing quite a lot of work for me, maybe communicating more than I have in the past year. 

Coercing image memories back to the underground where they belong, to sprout in my nightmares

I go to sleep after writing that line, submitting the poem in spite of being unsure if it has a motif. I expressed myself; whether my grade is decent doesn't matter much.