Crumbled Stars
Close your eyes
Out of sight
Out of my mind
In too deep
Come out blind
Reach for the darkness
See what you find
Look up at the sky and see the light.
See the moon split in half
The stars crumbled,
Falling like the words
You could never get out.
I open my eyes and I’m still covered in darkness
I’m still in school and I still feel like nothing.
I feel like I’m not enough
Not good enough for them
I feel like a fish in the sea with sharks, nowhere to run
And nowhere to hide. I hear my name my mind goes blank
And suddenly I’m back in the un-ending darkness
Ocawactobi Siloko
Time
Time is an emotion,
A different emotion every time,
Time can be short,
Or it can be long,
Time cannot be measured in seconds,
Time is measured in moments,
Time is anonymous,
Time can be deceiving
It can change your future,
But it cannot change your past,
Time can define or destroy you,
Time is everywhere,
Time is not defined by watches,
Time can make you sad or happy,
Time makes you who you are,
Time can be your biggest enemy,
Or your best friend,
Time is an emotion.
Imman Anas
My Own Person
Being in school is hard
Having someone judge you is hard
Being in competition is hard
But I am my own person
Having anxiety is hard
Being dyslexic is hard
Being different is hard
But I am my own person
And that’s the easy part.
Elena Phelan
Life
Life can be difficult at times
It doesn’t always go the way we want
Forgetting what had happened makes me happy
Even when it was bad.
Life can be unfair
I think sometimes ‘why me?’
Filling it with memories, for
Even when I’m dull.
Live life to your best
Is the best advice I can give,
Forget the past and long for the future,
Endlessly.
Vineetha Vinod
Heaven Should Haunt Us
You say in this whole place,
Heaven should haunt us.
Burns are half as long but twice as bright.
You say it’s beyond us,
Then what is beyond us?
The sea and the stars.
I will still be here star gazing.
I still look up, look up, look up for love.
Naomi Alsbury
Oppression
We try to express ourselves
But we’re made to look the same
They say try harder
When we’ve given them everything
They don’t seem to understand
The struggles that we face
Freedom is what we deserve
It is what we desire
But we will never find it
If people don’t look in the mirror
Because somewhere down the road
It will be your children struggling
To find a place where they are free
A place where they are equal
Amy Flynn
Stand Up
Put your hand up
Sit down
Stand up
Look down
Smile brightly
Close your mouth.
Shut the hell up
You ignorant slut.
Pull that skirt down
Hike those socks up
Keep your eyes down
Low, to the ground.
Don’t utter a word
Don’t you dare shout
If you think is unfair
Do you really think they care?
If you feel like animals
Eating each other up like cannibals
Their words gnawing away
At your bruised, battered and bloody brain.
And do you really think
The teachers will listen if you say
That no, you’re not okay
This girl, you cry, she really hurt-
Hold on a second, can you pull down your skirt?
Stand up
Look down
Hand up
Quieten down
Stand up
For the queers and the fags
They’re your friends
But no, not the slags
The sluts, the tramps,
Fire words you know will hurt
At those girls, with the too tight shirts.
Cause it’s all okay
To stand up for the gays
But that’s only one problem.
One in a million.
One in a trillion problem.
And they don’t care to solve it.
Cause guess what
They don’t give a damn
About the ones who can’t pay
And the ones who can’t stay
In school longer than a month
They still shout,
Pull down your skirt.
Stand up.
Sit down.
Shut up.
Be loud
Because there’s still girls getting hurt
Fags getting slagged
Travelers getting battered
And didn’t you hear me the first time?
Pull. Down. Your. Bloody. Skirt.
Isobel Tiernan
Untitled
Teachers don’t teach us confidence
Teachers don’t treat us equally
But they don’t know what’s really legal
They do what they’re told.
But they don’t know that the future beholds
We don’t know if we will
Grow up to be a surgeon or grow up to be an addict
Everyone wants to be normal
But not everyone fits in
I wonder if teachers understand
That teenage life isn’t easy
School isn’t breezy
Whether we get F’s or A’s
We still all deserve all our praise
Kate Quinlan
We Have a Voice
We are the secondary school students
Voices that need to be heard
Suffering that should be observed
We copy notes from a book
Sit still in a chair
Listen passively to lectures
The teachers don’t care
We are being failed by our education system
We need someone who will listen.
We feel hopeless
This is atrocious.
This wasn’t our choice.
We have a voice.
Dionne Ogunfeyimi
Is this About a Toxic Relationship or a Politician?
Why aren’t you here with me?
Why aren’t you hearing?
Why don’t you come near to me?
Is it a fear of me?
You say dear to me
Bur you’re not being sincere to me
Whispering into my ear to me
Saying get over here to me
I’m at the frontier of me
The battle is unclear to me
All you have is tears for me
Even just read King Lear with me
You say you want to spend all year with me
But I just want you to be clear with me
Instead of having a beer with me
Please try and be here with me
I miss you hearing me
Libby Marchant
Untitled
Broken, a heart unspoken
Crushed, by the distrust
She locked away
The demotion of her emotion.
But if left unspoken it rises like
The ocean, consuming her
Thoughts across her fragile soul.
Anna Duffin
People
I hate people who think they are better than everyone else.
People who always want to be the victim.
People who act different around different people.
People who make you feel like you’re the most horrible person on earth.
People who seem innocent but really aren’t.
People who would pay to see you at your lowest.
People who leave you at your worst and come back at your best.
People who smile in your face but laugh behind your back.
People who act like they want the best for you, but pray for you to fail.
People who feed off the misery of others.
Favour Benson and Thando Ncube
An Ode to Secondary School
My teachers say I’m bright
But my knowledge reaches no height.
I was a creative child
Constantly I was wild.
My teachers said to speak my mind
I wrote all that I could find-
13 years of age I hit first year
I was sent to a new fear.
Everything I had to write was fake
My creativity started to break,
My grades started to slip
While my intelligence went into a skip.
My brain capacity is false and learned to heart
As my creativity fell apart.
Since I went to secondary school
My IQ melted into a pool.
Trying to push me to ‘be smarter’
But my knowledge was killed at the start.
Ellen Fitzgerald
Untitled
Non sibi sed cunctis
Not for self but for others
An ethos that’s a lie
Said by vultures.
All honours, all classes,
Screaming for hallway passes.
Your skirts not long enough
The individuality of each student is just a bluff
A building of lies
But all for what prize
All A’s all A’s
H1 in the leaving for days
Ebonie and Niamh
A Choice
People complain about not being enough
Not being smart
Having a hard time when you don’t
Get invited to a party
Or a sesh
Meanwhile your best friend suffering a loss
Drowning in her own problems
And at the same time trying to
Lift you above water
For you to survive, while
She drowns further
And further into the endless Ocean
Sacrificing herself
Thinking she doesn’t deserve
A chance to swim up to
Life
Franca
Untitled
No tattoos, no piercings,
No skirts up your hole
No differences between us
Tis the most bull going.
Can I just do what I want?
Be who I want to be?
Without being judged,
Just for being me.
Sinead and Caoimhe
Swimmers
5 a.m. in the morning,
We dive in with no warning.
The water is cold.
But the feeling never gets old.
The water rushes past me,
Counting laps one, two and three.
My body’s still sore.
After training the day before.
We have a need for speed,
But it makes us feel freed.
In the end it’s all worth it.
And we will never quit.
Anon
Untitled
I walk into the room and I see her face,
The anger rushes through my body,
Wanting to hit her face,
Even though it’s aggressive and she’s just a disgrace.
The ignorance and pettiness at her age.
You’d think she’d cop on, but no she carries
On to do it the next day.
Anon
Struggles of School Life
Blank walls match blank faces
While teachers move at exhilarating paces
Numbers and letters whizz through our minds
And fade to blank as if going blind
Homework is fired at us through an invisible gun
And the strict voices are deafening if we don’t have it done
The only thing more important than uniform
Is the silence when forced to the hall
In an unbelievable swarm
Ciara Brennan
Picture Perfect
Scrolling through Instagram,
Thinking it’s how it’s meant to be.
All these pictures perfect posts
And that’s what us normal people see.
Relationship goals and holiday envy.
With all these celebrities,
Posing by their Bentley
But what about behind the scenes?
The tears, the shouts, the shrieks, the screams.
Not everybody’s life will get 1000 likes
But we all deserve our own rights.
Lillie Elliott
Untitled
The school is messed up
They think I’m not enough
Doors are being shut
Creativity is being cut
Dreams being smashed
Reality hitting fast
It’s not about education
It’s about reiteration.
Kelly McDonagh and Isabelle Merritt
Untitled
You say our skirts are short
But why are you looking down there?
Are you gonna sue me in court
It’s simply not fair
Our thighs are not allowed to be shown
Sexualising girls even in school?
Looks like your big ego has grown.
Why is your school so cruel?
Aoife Queally and Rachel Goff
Untitled
Stones and smiles
His smile is worthwhile
I go all red
But I don’t wish I was dead
His face is so sexy
God please help me
Someone free me
Paula
My Family
All great things come in 3’s
You can listen and you will see
It’s all about my little family
My mum is the sunshine you see
My brother and I are the sunflowers
That grow in pairs you see
We are the three musketeers
I love my little family
Isobel Kelly
Untitled
This is a story all about
How I got into the ring and
Started the bout.
I kicked her face and put her back
In her place, then I gave her a punch
And her face went scrunch.
Up against the ropes she could no longer cope.
She hit the floor and she was
Sore, looking like a boar, I swore,
She was finished but I was ready
For more.
Clodagh Cullen and Mollymay Hayes
Food
Food brings us great comfort and joy
There’s Oreos, Jaffa Cakes and Chips ahoy!
It’s always there for us, happy or sad
Our parents scream at us cause our diets are so bad.
Our dogs are pretty fat, too
But it’s just because they wanna be in the crew.
Food means the whole world to us
Our love for it could fill a double-decker bus!
Anon
Untitled
Drugs are bad
They make you go mad
The feeling a bit rad
The come down
Anon