Privileged Young Ladies - by Camille Saunders

I wrote this poem in my first week of university reflecting on the 2 years of school prior, which was a period of time in which London and the UK in general was swept under by a wave of sexist abuse in schools, which is what made us make Nous in the first place. I wrote it in the 15 minutes it took me to walk home from my last class of the day to my accommodation. It was dark, I was walking quickly, I opened up my notes app and I wrote. Everything came out. I never intended on publishing it, especially not with my name on it, but when a close friend of mine read it and said she had "never felt so seen", I knew what I had to do. It is imperfect, but it would not be right to edit it as it is authentic to the time. It includes details from my friends' experiences as well as my own, and I hope that nobody has to feel this way ever again, but if you do, I hope that you too feel heard.

Privileged young ladies
Without anything to complain about
The perfect school
The perfect man
The perfect future laid ahead of us:
The perfect plan etched into our souls
From childhood
With ink as black
As our waning sanity
Filling our lungs with ash
Like the collapsing buildings
Of a reality we know we’ll never know
As we use lighters to scare the dark away
From the inside out
Blaming ourselves for our pain
As everyone else did
And desperately flounder to flush it away
With poison in our veins
As hospitalisation is the only way we can forget
The living nightmare of surviving the day
Cramming our personal statements with
Passion, flair and fire
Though behind our exhausted lifeless eyes
The only fire we feel
Is coiled around our intestines
From the constant caffeine
As we push another paracetamol
From the packet
And try and black out
Sorry – to block out the constant
Driving headache
I didn’t mean to
It was an accident
So we pull down our jumper sleeves
To cover our arms
Marred by vicious made-up pets
And increasingly real desperation
Hold in our stomachs
And try and ignore the suspicious glances
Objectifying stares
And condescending smiles
Keep our heads down to avoid the whistles
And the threats
And swallow our pride
And our dread
Hide our fear or they’ll smell it
Hide our bruises they’ll just deny it
And enter a classroom of walking nightmares
That never had to face responsibility
For their crimes
For their lies
That tore apart our lives
Like lightning in a velvet sky
And leave the room when things get heavy
To try and breathe again
Without feeling like there’s a pin
Stuck into our throats
That we can’t dislodge
Without bringing with it
The content of our lunch
That we spent feverishly picking
At the corner of a page
Pretending to read
As assaulters and abusers amble past
Unaware of what its like to see them there
Eating their sandwiches
Surrounded by daisies and
The sulphurous cloud of
Their own impertinence
That no one will believe her
Smiling horrors in suits
Regurgitating empty garbage about
Equality and freedom
To impress their dream universities
While we push down our trauma
And bile
And smile
Sit tight in silence
Because if we leave the conversation
We’re weak
And dramatic
The madwoman set loose from the attic
And not contributing enough to
Finding a solution
To the problems that they caused
But if we stay
And manage to spend the day
With people who allow us to forget
This overprivileged Hell we’re burning in
Then we’re clearly fine
We made it up
For attention
From which we run
In case someone tries too hard
To find the lifeless husk
Of who we were
Before we buried her
In case we run out of excuses
And start to feel
The avalanche of pent-up emotion
Of uncried tears of liquid fire
That will exorcise the demon of memory
Of unheard hollow screams
That will force out the monsters of trauma
Of caged birds of prey
That will soar with eloquence
The day we finally find the words
Not just in our hearts that physically hurt
Like they’re being clenched by an iron fist
But in our lungs that are too tight to bring in air
Whenever we’re forced to think about it
In our ears that ring like a fire bell
Til it drowns out all the noise around us
To our hair that we hold
In the shower as it falls out in clumps
And we try and remember that that body is ours
Even if we don’t recognise it
In the glare of the daylight
A probing, groping searchlight for any
Shadow of a fault with which they’ll
Rip us into shreds
And then say “she needs a bit of support”
With a knowing smile of unadulterated adult ignorance
So they can play action man
Play hero
Play god
Like we’re broken dollies
That they’ll later toss aside
And tick a box that they’ve fixed us
And leave us feeling more used than ever
Staring at the ceiling
Through our nights that are broken and
Shattered into shards of
Nightmares and flashbacks
Bloodied by our clumsy hands
As we try and piece together the mirror
That once showed us
An image we recognised
Privileged young ladies
Lined up for school photos
As teachers beam with pride for sending them
To Oxbridge
To Warwick
To Durham
To Bath
As we’re picked apart
From the ramparts
Our height our weight
Our body our face
When the only thing to be criticised
Are not our perfect imperfect bodies
Are not our inhumanly strong reactions
To the mind searing problems and
Heart wrecking cruelties
That we never brought upon ourselves
Yet carry as a burden every day
Including and especially
The days we’re told it’s our responsibility
To stop it from happening again
Because my god
We were told to stay away from strangers
And not to be alone with danger
But it’s far too late
When you realise you’re dating it
The jury of society has made its call
And anything that happens is your fault now
The verdict has been spoken
And it will never be in your favour
Until the gargoyles forged in Hell itself
Are brought to justice
In an inferno as unyielding
As the one that rages in your heart
That only your tears could quench

If only our sheltered hearts could feel

If only our privileged eyes could cry