IN THE HOSPITAL

You were not allowed to feel

you were not allowed to touch

diagnosed bipolar

it means your too happy or too sad

and you already knwo what their solution is, if you show too much emotion

more medications. medications to keep you numb. numb to your feelings.

why didnt they interview my family? why didnt they sned a social worker?

why was i locked away and they threw away the key? did they ahve any idea how traumatizing that is for a 17 year old? did they care?

was my family happy that i was gone, to a hospital int he hospital gown, getting fed these medications like pills. did they ahve any idea? 

do we trust hospitals and doctors so much?

when i got out they kept blaming me. i kept getting pushined for my emotions.

if i get angry, they started saying she must not have taken her pills.

no one asked what happened at the hospital or my experiences.

but like everyone else, they were scared of my feelings.

am i not allowed to feel anger anymore?

you get trauma after trauma after trauma

and they wonder why you ahve changed.

while having no idea what happened to you and how it affected you

the the sweet moments when you finally talk to someone

they tell you to let it go

like them just listening to your story was theraputic

the doctors, they dont want to listen to you how to you get there

they just want to give you all the mediactions they cna legally give you

do you know me, Ayris? the no drug no sex perfect A student? 

my crime is that i was aken from a country and sent here for an education, dchange at the american who the hell knows what it is anymore dream?

gie up everything you are, for a chance to get soemthing that they never wanted to giv eyou.

go to the job interviews, straighten your hair. play the game. get the education they want you to have. speak the way they want you to speak. delete you accent.

powder your nose. work at mcdonalds or dunkin until you can afford those suits at Express. Y ou know the ones, $70 for a pair of pants that are so thin that they will not last you through winter. but you ahve to have the look. black or gray, the color of corporate.

blend in, don't be ourself. stay quiet, look at the computer screen.

dont stand out. dont make too many jokes, try not to speak your mind unless its lunch time and the people politically speaking are not going after your job.

i'm done fitting in to the idea that you told me to be. you had me then gave me away then ripped me away from what i knew. all the time, never talking to me which makes me think yoiu dont care how you feel. and honeslty, i know you dont care. its all how can i fit into the life you drafted for me.

you wanted me to be american? put me in the school i leanred the language in a year. i was compared to my sister, she spoke it better. i had more vocabulary because i learned English through reading. She learned it by wathing the Simpsons witht the SAP button. YOu konw, it taught you how each word sounded. I just lookat the the ink and the paper. I knew the vocabulary. I was a year older, my accent, more profond.

When I came to Georgia, people at church came up to me and spoke to me in spanish. its nothing like white people butchering your language. why did they do that? i felt like i wasnt being seen.

or maybe they saw the wrong thing. they saw that i am of hispanic origin. so they ignored everythign i said, like I said hey I really enjoyed the way you worshipped God up there. He wcould have said, yes, god is good. or gotten more personal, god called me to be in the worship team since  teenager. whatever.

but i was real and you were a version of yourself that you are only around people that look like hispanic decenset.  how did you even know i would k,nwo spanish? you looked at me and assumed Iknow spanish? you konw how many 3rd generations kids are here and the language gets lost? how are you so confident talkign to me in spanish and what did we win here? 

you show that you took a year of spanish in high school and I am the person that you want to practice on? i dont have a conversational spanish business. I am a person, a person that you can get to know. nbut instaead you speak spanish to me and then i acknowled you speaking spanish and then you move on, never addressing my honest comments of appreciation for what you do for the churhc.

I am tired. I am me. There are other things. but this one is the one that happened lately. I'm tired of being assumed. i'm single, assumed I want you to hook me up with your latest single loser that is 30 and aging and shoudl get with me, a single mother so that maybe we can get together and he has an automatic son? 

I dont see your game plan here. with no thought to ask me what I want. adn even whne we speak and I tell you, you dont really listen. bedcause when people see you, they dont really see you. they see what they want to see. they don't hear you. You are a container with which they hold the opinions and judgements they already ahve about you. they lok for confirmation of their judgements and ignore all the ways you dont fit their already decided on suggestions. 

I am not you. I am not me. I am not my hair, my curls, my son (hello I was born a woman so yes I have the ability to pro-create in case you didint learn that in science class). You know nothign about me but want to tell me who I am and what I can do and waht I am capable of.

I should marry this guy or that other guy from this church. I SHOULD MOVE< BEUCASE I AM IN THE PROJECTS> YOU LIFT NOT YOUR FINGER TO DO SOEMTHIGN USEFUL FOR ME< LIKE GIVE ME $ BUT YOU ARE OBNOXIOUS ENOUGH TO THINK YOU QUALIFY TO PICK OUT A HUSABDN FOR ME> 

WOW< JUST WOW> I"M DISGUSTED WITH YOU>