Before You Judge Someone

If we wrote a poem about your childhood could we go and live there?

A poem about lost balls toy soldiers and endless summers

If you are afraid of growing up we can hide in a verse about morning cartoons and cereal

If you hate your job we can play hide and never actually seek

When you feel lonely you can live again your coziest snow day

Let's write a verse about how much we hate adults and let's hope that time stops

Let's write about boys that know how to feel and girls that don't wear pink until the illusion of identity shatters like our dreams

This poem isn't about regrets or wasted potential

This poem is our new home with pillows from your sofa

With verses about hugs and your friends

Let's write a verse about the times you cried and how it shaped you

Let's create stories about bravery and bruises and how the bullies of the world will always be afraid to look you in the eyes

Let's live in a poem about old bikes scraped knees first kisses and forgotten lullabies

Childhood was never about carelessness or unlimited possibilities

Just the ability to make kinder worlds

If we wrote a poem about a stranger's childhood, would you go and live there?

you might write about friendless mornings or wasted potential

Lines about unrequited love

Maybe you'll have to rhyme violence with innocence

Can you create metaphors about visible and invisible scars?

The smell of alcohol and the echoes of screams

Be prepared to write verses about death or verses about rape

Your story might include first breaths in the war

Or last breaths anywhere in the world

Bear in mind that you might write about the broken that became worst than their parents

Or about the broken that never met their parents

We design societies about fairness and balance but we seem to forget that our adulthood is affecting someone else's childhood

We walk this earth convinced this game will never be fair even though we never tried to fix it

But between the horror and the tenderness

There are the few people that were dealt a bad hand and managed to change the narrative

The people that refused to become bitter when everyone expected them to

The brave souls that created something out of nothing

We are in this together but each one of us is playing a very different game

Some people carry heavy shadows Some people play against greater odds than you and win

These people when they smile the universe smiles with them Before you judge someone, think about that