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April is National Poetry Month, a time when we celebrate poetry and recognize how it has shaped American culture. This year, KUT is participating in National Poetry Month by sharing poems written by students in the Blank Page creative writing programs at Kealing and Fulmore Middle Schools and the Writers' Workshop at Rawson Saunders School. You can read the and listen to the poems here, and you can also listen to the poems read on KUT 90.5 FM throughout the month of April.

The World

Read by Jennifer Stayton.

The world is crying out for help -- wailing, sobbing
Innocence dulled, eyes still open but ruined by
The smoke
The lies
The bodies
I'm a poor girl, no money to spare for donations
I'm a magnet student run ragged by my school no time to spare
But here,
Here I am.
Can you hear
Me?
This isn't my voice but hear my words, screaming.
Only lived in this wretched place for 14 years.
But I see the homeless families,
with nowhere to go when it's bitter cold,
people avoiding their eyes, not sparing a second glance,
I see girls barely older than me, having children because they need to.
Another head another welfare check.
Girls who can't see past the front porch, who feel stuck where they are
‘cause they don't know where they could go.
I see families who can't afford to put food on the table
Who barely make their rent.
Parents who can't spend time with their children
because they picked up an extra shift to clothe them.
I see the families who struggle with abuse.
Trapped by one another, assuring each other it's okay,
while inside they cry out for help.
I see the couples who are scared to hold hands because what if someone saw. Women who can't wear their partner’s ring, who claim an absent husband,
because they could be laid off.
For loving.
Because someone decided their love is inferior.
I see the girls who starve and hate themselves
because they are shown they aren't beautiful.
I see people who want to kill themselves because they feel alone, feel trapped.
Feel they can't suffer any longer.
If I can see this
Then why can't you?
All I can offer is my kindness
But you. You can do something. You can help. Save them.
Please.