To the kid stamped with the label:
“The one you never have to worry about.”
Can the child who was always “fine”
ever fall behind in life?
Or did that child get so used to floating
that living got left behind?
To live doesn’t mean you’re alive.
And that child hasn’t felt a heartbeat in years—
just quiet survival in the shadows.
The “okay” child is kind to everyone
because they know what it feels like when nobody is kind to them.
Crowned “the good one” at birth
and left to walk the dark forest alone.
No lantern.
No hand to hold.
Left to walk through fire with third-degree scars,
never screaming because screaming makes a child an inconvenience.
Ask what that child wants:
To be seen.
Because no one protected them,
they swore to be the shield for every child that comes after.
They will burn the whole world to ash to keep those kids safe.
Touch them, and you pay.
Standing guard with bare hands,
wondering in the dark:
Who was ever supposed to be their dragon?
Who was supposed to walk into the woods with them
when the sun went down and the monsters came out to play?
Nobody.
Because the “okay” child isn’t allowed to complain.
Spend a lifetime on defense,
and the second a boundary is set,
everyone claims they are playing offense.
So they learned how to read.
They learned how to hide.
Stacked books like a wall against the world,
and accepted invisibility as a second skin.
A lost kid
stuck in a Neverland where nobody came looking.
Now the nervous system stays locked.
Scared of love because love was never shown.
Scared of warmth because the fire left too many burns.
To the parents out there:
The quiet kid is not okay.
Stop labeling a child as “the one you never have to worry about.”
If you can’t protect, check on, and love a child,
then do not have them.
The “okay” child survived the dark alone.
And the silence has officially run out.
They were never okay.
