Bandaging Different Beliefs | Teen Ink

Bandaging Different Beliefs

May 20, 2014
By Woolf SILVER, Raleigh, North Carolina
Woolf SILVER, Raleigh, North Carolina
6 articles 0 photos 3 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Sure you can teach people to be beautiful, but don't you know that there is a force greater than you that teaches them to be gullible?" ~ Bob Dylan


My name doesn’t mean female,

Age 15-16, white, brownish-blonde hair

Blue eyes 5’1”, conservative dresser, glasses-

No, it doesn’t.

Too many people write about social justice,

Or they complain about complaining.

You can write about nothing but say everything.



I was hanging out with a water bottle

And a friend the other day, talking about how

If one of us were to de, the world would keep spinning.

“It could be 20 years,” I said.

“It could be tomorrow,” said my friend.

“More people die from broken hearts

Than from smoking.”

“Very true.” I agreed.

The water bottle cried over nothing.



He and I like quiet,

We run through kudzu populated forests

Barefoot, and don’t eat lunch meat sandwiches

Or other loud foods.



I’m just stating this to say that

I won’t scream into an audience

About an abusive background,

Making the words sound unintelligible.

I have no background.

Almost everything hurts me.



It seems as if that

We view either ourselves or the world,

As one big virus.

Some think the world’s a leper,

Falling apart slowly

We put bandages on our skin,

And by “we” I mean “I”.

I sign my name on it to let him know it’s mine.



I think about how no one thinks for themselves

When they’re at work or school.

They wait until there over twenty to get married,

To have kids.

It’s a pecking order of common practice.

Deviants are born and burned.



Junkyard Queens and Slum Goddesses

Walk around in mud

And catch fireflies because it’s what’s unhealthy

As we walk past them my friend asks me,

“Do you wanna go on a freight train?”

“To where?”

“Anywhere.”



(Long pause)



I stop and think to the last time I laughed.

I thought about it and frowned.

Nobody ever said you had to be pretty by the time you were in 7th grade,

And I never watch Disney Channel.



People call others names when

They have nothing else to give them.

Stitching wounds of something,

Not knowing that it’s already infected,

Will make your whole body fester.



Nothing could be cured with “I love you.”

We say we “love” everything

Love is when you give yourself up for something, at whatever cost,

Or when you lay with your lover and your hearts are beating at the same time.

I think about other words,

And how nobody should try to be a hero or even a survivor.

You are a survivor the moment you come out of the womb and breathe.



(Long pause ends)



My friend’s blue eyes still cradle me.

I smile at him and say,

“Yes, I’ll go with you, anywhere-

But I need some help taking these bandages off.”



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