Dear Society

Mon 20th Jul 2026

I grew up listening to your rules before I learned my own voice.
You told me who to be
before I even knew who I was.

You said, be strong,
but never asked what broke me.
You said, be perfect,
but never taught me how to heal my flaws in public.

Dear Society…
why do you clap the loudest for those who are already winning
and whisper the loudest about those still trying?
You taught us to compare,
to compete,
to compete until we forget we are human.

And now look at us…
young people smiling for pictures
but crying in silence behind filtered happiness.

Dear Society…
you measure success by cars, clothes, and certificates,
but you never measure the nights we survived anxiety
or the mornings we forced ourselves to keep going.

You call it weakness when we speak up.
You call it laziness when we fall down.
But you never call it pain when we are breaking inside.

Dear Society…
we are tired of being “fine.”
Tired of pretending.
Tired of living in a world that praises success
but ignores struggle.

So listen carefully…
We are not your competition.
We are not your expectations.
We are not your labels.

We are voices.
We are wounds learning how to speak.
We are stories still being written.

And one day,
we will rise so loud
that even your silence will learn our names.

So dear Society…
start listening.
Because we are no longer asking for space…
we are taking it.

 

Spoken word by Vivi Shenelle