Who is Wearing Away? by A. Pierson

Amber Pierson writes with the intent to make people think and to pull emotions from the deepest parts of people.

Who Is Wearing Away?

Is it the woman, with tear streaks staining
Her skin, barely noticeable in the twilight?
Her shoulders slumped with a weight no one
Can feel but her, burdening each step, people
Stepping past her, not sparing a glance.

Is it the man with scars on his wrists? Who
Hides in long sleeve shirts, even as sweat pours
Down his forehead and people ask over and over
Why don’t you just wear a tee shirt? Who smiles
Before going home and ripping open his flesh.

Is it the girl who has no safe place? Who comes home
To fists and violence? Beer studded breath again young
Unblemished flesh. Too young for the fear and world
Weariness that has settled in her eyes, eyes that no longer
Cry but no longer smile.

Is it the boy who has broken skin, ragged along his
Knuckles? Bruises, deep purple and green scattering
His skin like the pattern of a blanket. The boy who fights
Everyday just to exist as he is, instead of as the world
Expects him to be.

Black Lives Matter

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From the Editor:

We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.

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