I Am Me

• Tanayah Walters, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2022

I’m only 13 years old I don’t know much about life,
But I know that it shouldn’t feel like you’re getting stabbed from behind.
I know that the word perfect and suicide should not exist or
that we should be terrified of our own mind.
But I feel isolated,
isolated in this world that everyone says is beautiful and that I’m too young to understand.
But I understand that if one hair grows on my body I will get made fun of, its gross they say,
I understand that if your not pretty you have to be smart but what if I’m neither? What if I’m in the middle?
I grew up on pretty barbie dolls and perfect princess’ they don’t have one fault,
not one freckle, not one pimple, not one crooked tooth and Lucious hair tell me how that’s fair?
Its not, this world is appalling on the unrealistic standards they teach.
130 deaths of suicide a day that means approximately 47, 450 deaths a year, let that number sink in,
I use to want to be apart of that 130 people a day.
I thought I needed her body or her hair or even her skin colour, but I don’t
I am me and I’m my body nothing more nothing less.