When I was 3
A man I never knew
Asked my mother if I was mute

When I was 4
A woman I had never met
Asked my father if I had been adopted

I may have been small and naïve
But the size of my ears
Does not define what I hear
And what I hear and what I see
Is you
You
Wasting your time
Brushing your teeth in the morning
Thinking you can wash away the putrid remarks
That came from your mouth
That rolled off of your tongue
That spilled out from your lips
Silly you, didn’t you read the label
Soap can’t wash away your sins
It merely dulls them
So you can walk the streets
Not having to wear them upon your skin
Like tattoos, unlike like the scars
Upon the wrists of the girl you once called mute
For those are forever

When I was 8
Kids I hardly spoke to
Began to chastise me for the shoes I wore and the way I walked

When I was 9
Nothing changed except for the fact that my harassment proved to be contagious and my brother caught the bug that was going around

Seeing as how my father is a doctor, and my mother, a wife and a sister to one, the two of them endlessly worked to cure my brother of the illness of stigmatism.
But because I was so meager
Because I was so timid
Because I was so helpless
I never let my sneezes make the slightest sound for fear that I might infect another
So is it the sound that makes a sneeze,
Or a sneeze that makes a sound?

If you were to ask my parents that very question, they would reply with complete oblivion to the fact that I ever sneezed, and no one was there to ever say ‘bless you.’

I am now 16
still small
still bashful

I stand before you
With the posture of a man carrying a thousand weights upon his back because the world taught me to be ashamed of my body and walk with the confidence of the cowardly lion

I stand before you
Never looking into your eyes as we speak because the world taught me that no one will ever look at me with eyes wide and nebulous, the way I look at the moon

I stand before you
A girl who sometimes talks to herself, not because she is schizophrenic, but because the world taught me to grow fond of the sound of my own voice for the fact that no one else will be there to tell you that you are enough.

My mother used to tell me
that perfection was the enemy of good
yet we live in a world
that preaches perfection
like the holy bible
a world that taught me
that at 3 in the morning, when my lullaby of tears was not enough to keep the nightmares from waking me, I will be the only person there to assure myself

YOU are enough
You ARE enough
I am ENOUGH