Broadsheet Journos (apologies to the Guardian)

They try to tell my story
practice empathy, specialise in truth:
like I'm a song to be learnt by heart.
Crap. Their words erase my life.
Their bold headlines, witty phrases
place a summary hat upon my head. Useless,
pulled down low, it obscures my eyes.
They do not know me. They do not ask me
for my voice —
deny space for my choice of tones, nouns and verbs.
They re-define my landscapes, troubles, aspirations
and so, I remain unheard. My lips move
in silence, yearn for ears to hear the poems
of my beating, screaming heart. My blood
rushes to my future, in spite of them.
Rain soaks their pages, covers fall away
as I, surviving child, stride into my own day.