Label Quotes

Once upon a time we were beautiful and alive
Happy and Smiling
We were innocent and confused
About what life was
We didn’t understand what death meant
We didn’t understand much of anything
But, then came our teenage years
Creeping up on us and stealing our innocence
Breaking us down and messing up everything
No longer could we be ourselves without being tormented and judged
We were bullied and harassed
Because we were different
Family
Strangers
Classmates
The Media
Society
Made us this way
They corrupted our innocent little minds
We started caring about things we never cared about as young children
But, once we grew up and got older
We weren’t so innocent anymore
We started to understand everything
We were stereotyped and labeled
Forever marked to be a target for somebody to torment
We tried to fit in and be “popular”
We acted out to be known
We worried about what we looked like
We worried about what clothes we wore
We worried about everything we did
Because we knew there was always somebody judging us
We started crying more and more
We felt alone
We were lost and confused
We wondered why we had to grow up
We reminisced about our younger years
We missed being so carefree
But, as we got older we learned to fake it all
We put on these happy masks
To fool everyone
We learned to keep our emotions locked away
We learned to lie when somebody asked if we were Okay
We learned how to come off as brave when in reality we were scared
For the more broken ones we learned to be the happiest people ever
We learned to smile all the time and be outgoing
We learned not to let anyone in because they wouldn’t understand
We learned how to act like judgments didn’t hurt us
We learned to act like we were made of bulletproof glass when really we were already cracked
For the more well known ones
We learned to be rude and hurtful to people that were different
We learned to think we were better than everybody else
We learned to gossip and spread nasty, hateful things
We learned to use slurs on a regular basis
We learned to bully the ones that were below us in social status
For the ones more concerned about grades
We learned to keep our minds all about grades and work
We learned to put grades before everything else
We learned to give up pretty much everything that wouldn’t help us have a successful future
We learned to roll our eyes at those less intelligent and mature than us
We all learned how to be robots that live to please everybody around us except for ourselves
We started caring more about what people thought about us then what we wanted
We started being terrified about being ourselves
We started losing friends because they weren’t like us anymore
We started losing ourselves because we didn’t want people seeing how alike we all actually are
We may be different now but we only differ on the outside
Inside we are all alike in one way or another
We’re scared of life and the world around us
We’re afraid of people finding out we aren’t as “different” as we like to believe
We’re little kids inside trying to survive in a messed up world
We’re teenagers and society has killed us