With my lips colored red

Please be aware of the children around you ..


Did you not know it and  could you not feel:
My brokenness inside me: how much it was real?
Yet, you'd paid me no heed and  you'd beat me up more
My poor little body was so bruised up and sore

To school I'd be running with my lips colored red
Not because of some lipstick but a slapping instead
My teachers, all looking, and shaking their head
Would ask me about "falling"  and how much I had bled...

There was something inside me, that kept it inside.
The lashings,  the abuses: I would carefully hide
Though a sibling or other would speak it out loud
My complaints were a whisper: away from the crowd.