They Told Us Poem by Danielle Nguyen

We’d hear all the time that we’d understand when we’re older,
but no one ever said that there’d be
world hunger,
mothers dying,
fathers killing fathers and
children losing faith in each other,
and most of all,

No one ever told us about the personal tragedies.
We never heard about tears. The way
sitting on curbs in cities at night,
every far-off crisis was just that:
Far-off.
And when we would turn up our palms,
our lined hands glittered in our blurred vision,
a sick irony to the starshine sky above.
Wet skin like wet, haggard inhales.

No one ever said heartbreak was real.
They gave us flat geometric cutouts and scotch tape,
valentines pieced whole, complete; like that could ever resemble the
splintered, ragged shards ground into themselves, into a
bloody slab of pavement anchored by our
trembling feet,
aching knees, and
shaking hands.

Like every touch,
every glimmer of sunshine was enough to
flash us in time to a gasping collapse.

We’ll be okay.
But it’s the misled children on the curbs of this world who
reach their throbbing, ribboned fingers for
something more;
who try to reach that starlight out in heaven somewhere.
Because maybe out there,
understanding or not understand feels right.

We’ve learned that happy endings are just
frail, beautiful figments of fiction.
And that, maybe, when you’re older
you finally understand:
Most of the time,
being okay is the most you can really ask for.