Our Voices
Below are a couple of poems created by our teenage clients.Gracious Skies
Gracious memories fall from the sky.
They come from above my conscious mind.
The light that’s so splendid its blinding my eyes.
To create is to love and to love you must hate all the things in this world that we can’t escape.
Things that are lost vainly to trust.
Those things we forget and never discuss.
The simplest smile, smirk, or laugh, keeps the fires sedated with joy at last, a happiness that descends on the silver hair.
One so hard to find though its every where.
Memories of fall spring summer and cold, those secret words that are never to be told.
It can only confide in ones soul.
The seasons frame every moment from within, like the names we have love for and the ones we befriend.
This affair only grows and it never will end, in these eyes they are seen, in these hands they are touched.
With this heart they are esteemed, in these lands they are seen that it is never too much.
Here you can want and never have, just keep it to yourself and don’t get mad.
Instead be grateful for what you have, at the end of the day the memory will last.
-- Christopher Gillespie
My Pillow
As I lay on my pillow with my eyes shut I think and wonder while I dream.
I lay on my pillow as I get beaten my body sore and I’m in pain, As I lay on
my pillow I think about the future and what it holds.
As I lay on my pillow I think about where God is going 2 send me.
I lay on my pillow dying from stress that a young girl shouldn’t have.
My pillow is full of tears.
Asking God am I safe.
Lying on my pillow I cry because I want mom.
Wondering where is she. As I lay on my pillow I fade away slowly but surely!
Lying on my pillow
As an angel!!
--Thelma Gafford. 7/13/06
Afraid
Afraid of myself, and what I know I can do
Afraid of change and the person I see
Afraid of me
Afraid of what someone may say
Afraid of what someone may do
Afraid of me
Afraid of new homes or group homes
Afraid to tell a lie
Afraid of who I am
Afraid of me
Afraid of what I see in the mirror which is me
Afraid of me
Afraid of all things that
Comes my way
I’m afraid of me
--Thelma Gafford 7/8/06
One Day
One day you’ll be grown
And have a place of your own
One day you’ll be an actress
And say hey I like this
One day you’ll have so much money
You’ll buy a car on a day that’s sunny
One day you’ll go to Hawaii
You’ll say ooh wee
One day you’ll reach the end
And never see life again
One day you’ll die
And hope you reach the sky
--Emma
How We
What to think, how to build. How to survive.
We forget how to live our lives to protect our spirit, to be clean and decent.
We forget that everything we do matters so much.
Every right decision brings us blessings.
Every wrong decision brings us pain.
And then, when times get hard our struggle and pain shows on our faces and our bodies.
Us women need not to let our dreams be destroyed.
We need to stand as one.
--Jonnita B.
A Man I Once Called Daddy
A man I use to call daddy,
But as I got older another man became my daddy,
So I searched and looked for this man I once called daddy,
And I looked and I looked asking people where is daddy,
Where is the man I once called daddy,
I asked and asked, But no one could tell me,
And I soon realized that the man I once called daddy,
Was a man I never really knew,
And until this day I still don’t know my daddy,
So I wait and I wait still looking and asking where is my DADDY!
--Lisa H.
I loved U
Gave you everything, held back nothing
Trusted you with my heart, begged you from the start not to break it, not to misplace it, not to use it, but you still abused it.
I took you seriously, you took me as a joke now I’m hurting from head to toe.
Still not really wanting to let go but I feel I really don’t have a choice cause I don’t want to fill this pain no mo.
Why do this to me you would have had everything love, trust, and honesty I wouldn’t have.
--Kiara D.
Stop to Think
Has anybody ever stopped to think,
Why?
Why did Jesus do what he did?
For us to stay alive?
Has anybody ever stopped to think
What?
What would happen if Jesus didn’t do what he did?
Has anybody ever stopped to think,
If?
If it wasn’t for him where would we be?
Well now people need to think
Why, What and If
He wasn’t the Jesus he was
--Akeema