Thirteen Year-Old Girl Kills Herself After Father Posts Shaming Video

I can’t wipe from my mind

your blank face, features delicate

even in the grainy footage,

your hacked hair (not shaved, at least

he spared you that) actually punk-cute,

though of course that’s irrelevant.

What he took from you was choice,

control of the figuring-itself-out self

you show the world.

You couldn’t know

bullies weaken from the very years

that would have set you free.

For you, each bridge led to

steel against your nape, humiliation

always just a click away, nothing

left to do but jump.

After the camera pans to a pile

of your shorn locks, his self-righteous

voice asks, Was it worth it?

Your one whispered syllable’s

the same answer you gave the world

whose beauty offered, Stay.