Invisible Ink 

by Yilin S., 14

Her eyes are tired behind her careful smile

At the bus stop, she stands with her backpack clutched to her chest

Long sleeves pulled low to guard purple flowers that bloom beneath.

Here, she practices stillness

When a bully’s voice cuts the morning air

The insult cuts her heart 

A wound disguised as a joke no one finds funny

Inside the halls,

Rumors spread faster than wind through open doors.

Lockers slam, shoes squeak, names whispered

They whisper fluently about grades and first kisses,

About parties and plans happening soon,

But never about the gravity waiting at home,

Never about the weight that broke her spine

Long before adulthood.

At home, the smoke from my father’s cigarette 

Travels through every room,

A false warmth that settles into curtains and blood-stained carpets,

A haze that softens nothing.

It coils along the ceiling,

Slipping beneath the crack of my door,

And lingers in my lungs,

Long after the ember dies.

There’s some sort of bitterness

In the words I trained myself not to say

How silence can parch my mouth,

How it thickens in my throat

Until breathing feels like swallowing sand.

You learn to ration language.

You learn the cost of sound.

My father sits at his table folding the book I’m trying to write,

Day by day,

Crease over crease,

Each fold marks the page permanently.

When he says “I’m sorry”

He smoothes it out with callous hands.

Proof that something once bent, used, beat,

Will never lie down flat or comfortably without feeling

The lines remain visible,

But are as faint as invisible ink.