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Arno Niem Poem
They never saw me—not really.
Only the outline I traced in the halls,
A whisper of denim and shy glances,
A ghost who smiled too politely.
They passed notes like grenades,
Laughed too loudly
When the silence was breaking me.
I wore their words like a second skin—
Tight, blistering,
But invisible to them.
You asked if I was okay once—
But your eyes flicked away
Before the truth had a chance to crawl out.
Still,
That was kind,
Compared to the others
Who carved their stories into my name
Without ever asking for mine.
I screamed,
But only inside,
Where echoes get lost
In the ribcage's corners.
And when I disappeared,
They asked,
“Why didn’t she say something?”
As if silence isn’t something we’re taught
By the ones who pretend
They’re listening.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
They say boys don’t cry.
They say it like a promise.
Like strength is stitched in our skin at birth
and weakness is something
you have to unzip your chest to find.
I was eight
when I learned that sadness had a gender.
That girls get tissues,
and boys get told to “tough it out.”
That scraped knees get band-aids,
but broken hearts?
Those just get buried under
“man up”
and “you’ll be fine.”
I was twelve
when my dad said,
“Stop acting like a girl.”
Like emotions were diseases
and I’d caught one.
So I stopped.
Stopped crying.
Stopped talking.
Stopped needing anything
that made me look soft.
Because being soft
felt like being disposable.
And you wonder why boys break things
before they break down?
Why fists meet walls before feelings meet words?
We are taught to bottle it up—
but no one tells you what happens
when the pressure hits the glass ceiling of your skull.
I walk hallways with a smile that’s a lie.
Teachers don’t ask.
Friends don’t see.
And the counselor?
Too busy with the loud kids,
the girls who cry pretty in bathrooms.
My silence doesn’t make a scene.
It just echoes.
Some nights I scream
into pillows
so I don’t have to apologize
for having a voice.
But no one sees bruises
when they’re on the inside.
No one asks
if you're okay
when your mask fits perfectly.
And I want to tell you—
depression wears cologne too.
Anxiety knows how to laugh at jokes.
Panic attacks can come
after touchdowns and straight A’s.
I want to scream:
Check on your boys.
Check on the ones who always say, “I’m good.”
Check on the ones whose humor hits too hard,
too fast,
like they’re trying to dodge their own thoughts.
Because we are drowning
in plain sight.
We are falling
but our hands look like fists,
so no one thinks to catch us.
We are breaking
in ways that look like silence.
And silence
doesn’t make noise
until it’s too late.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
It's been three months today.
I counted them without meaning to -
days turning into quiet weeks
since cancer took you away.
You were 47,
but to me you were larger than that.
Not just a nephew-
more like a second father,
a voice that always knew
how to steady the room.
I'm only 16,
and I thought people like you
were supposed to stay longer.
I still expect your laugh
to come from the other room.
Still expect your messages,
your random advice,
your way of making heavy things
feel lighter.
Cancer is such a small word
for something that takes a whole person with it.
Three months ago
the world kept moving-
cars, school, conversations-
but something in my chest
stayed behind with you.
Sometimes I'm angry.
Sometimes just tired.
And sometimes I just sit there
wondering how someone
so strong
could disappear so quietly.
But I carry pieces of you
in the way I think,
the things you taught me,
the jokes only we understood.
So even if you're gone
from the chair you used to sit in
every Friday,
from the voice I used to hear-
you're still here
in the spaces you changed inside me.
Three months without you
feels impossible.
But I'm still walking forward...
with your name
somewhere in my heart
every single day.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2026
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Arno Niem Poem
They say the world is full of voices,
But mine gets lost among the sound.
A whisper drowned by louder choices,
A silence no one seems to hound.
I walked through halls of hollow laughter,
Their eyes slid past like I was air.
I smiled, and moments later, after,
They left—and I was still not there.
My name, a note they never mention,
My thoughts, a sea they’ll never sail.
They see a mask, not the dimension
Of hearts that hurt but never wail.
I used to scream into the night,
But shadows never do reply.
Now I just breathe—too tired to fight—
And learn to live, not asking why.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
A voice recorded, soft but clear,
Echoes pain we failed to hear.
Hannah spoke from shadows deep,
Of secrets buried none should keep.
A hallway's whisper, locker stares,
Unseen wounds and empty chairs.
A photo passed, a cruel slight,
Each reason dimmed another light.
Justin's love turned into blame,
Jessica’s tears, the haunting shame.
Bryce’s smirk, a predator’s grin,
The silence loud—it let him win.
Clay rewinds but can't undo,
The paths they crossed, the truths they knew.
Mr. Porter, blind and slow,
Let chances slip and let her go.
Zach took notes but not her cries,
While Tyler's lens revealed the lies.
Alex sank beneath the weight,
Of guilt, too heavy and too late.
Thirteen stories, thirteen names,
A map of hurt, a trail of flames.
In every voice, a fractured plea:
“Would someone have stood up for me?”
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
He sits in the back.
Not because he wants to—
but because he’s tired
of being picked last
when he dares to show up at all.
You don’t see him.
Not really.
He’s there, though—
in the bathroom stall during lunch,
because his gut’s staging a protest.
IBS, the silent screamer,
writhing beneath his ribs
like worms made of fire.
They say, “It’s probably just nerves.”
As if nerves could make your stomach
scream through steel.
As if anyone ever asked
why he eats crackers
and nothing else for days.
But he has ANOREXIA,
and no—
it doesn’t always look like a skeleton in a hoodie.
It looks like skipping breakfast
and calling it “not hungry.”
It looks like counting calories
like confessions to a god he doesn’t believe in.
It looks like fear
every time a fork touches his lips.
Like control
in a world where nothing else listens to him.
It’s the mirror saying, “You’re still too much.”
It’s the scale saying, “You could be less.”
It’s watching your friends eat fries
while your stomach begs
and your brain says, “Don’t you dare.”
though he doesn’t look “thin enough”
to make it real.
Not to them.
They need bones to believe pain.
It’s being congratulated
for looking “healthier”
when really, you’re just vanishing
with a better smile.
And no one sees
how his ribs burn at night
from hunger and guilt—
how food becomes a weapon
and his body becomes the battleground.
He fights his reflection like an enemy,
but loses every single time.
And his mind?
It’s a house with broken windows.
He hears laughter from the outside
but never feels the warmth.
He is BI.
Not “half-gay.”
Not “confused.”
Just bi.
But to his friends,
it’s a punchline.
To his FAMILY,
it’s a betrayal.
His mom says, “Why can’t you just choose?”
His dad says nothing—
which is worse.
His silence is a sharpened thing,
carving shame into the boy’s heart
with every breath he doesn’t take.
FAMILY PROBLEMS
aren’t just arguments.
They’re echoes.
They are him,
learning to tiptoe
through rooms filled with broken glass,
memorizing where to step
to avoid explosions.
And still—
he smiles.
He laughs at their jokes.
He passes the test.
He says he’s fine
because that’s the only thing
anyone ever wants to hear.
But at night,
he writes poems in his mind
with blood he doesn’t shed.
He wonders—
what it would feel like
to finally be enough.
To be seen.
To be chosen.
But the bell rings.
Another day.
He picks himself up,
dusts off the loneliness,
and walks into the world again
like it hasn’t already eaten him alive.
Because he’s strong.
But God—
he’s so, so tired
of having to be.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
He doesn't cry in public-
he's learned to bleed where no one looks.
Where bathroom tiles keep secrets
and mirrors lie
just enough
to keep him standing.
he skips lunch again.
just not hungry, he says
but the hunger is real-
not for food
for someone
to notice.
for silence.
his sleeves stay long,
even in summer.
skin whispering stories
that no one ever asks to hear.
because boys?
boys don't break
boys don't shatter under the weight
of their own thoughts.
boys don't starve for control,
for silence,
for somebody
to say
"it's okey not to be okey."
They tell him,
"you're a guy.
You've got it easy."
but no one sees
the way his smile
hangs crooked,
forced-
like he's trying to convince himself
he's human.
he writes "help me"
in notebooks he never shows,
dreams of disappearing
without making a scene.
he's so used to being invisible,
it start to feel like peace.
and some nights,
he wonders:
if I were a girl, would you listen? Would u care?
would you ask what's wrong?
if I said I wanted to vanish?
he doesn't want attention.
he just wants to be seen.
not as weak.
not as broken.
but as real.
he is a boy
and he is hurting.
and that should be
enough for someone
to care.
about a boy.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
they say boys don't cry,
so he bleeds instead.
silent screams hidden
under hoodie threads.
he skips meals
like skipping pages
in a book that no one wants to read-
his ribs start spelling out
"notice me"
but no one speaks that language.
"you're a boy, tough it out,"
they said
when his voice shook like glass$and his hands begged for
anything
but silence.
so he carved the words
he couldn't say
into skin that never asked
to be a canvas.
they see the hoodie,
not the harm
they see the smile,
not the storm.
he hears
"girls have it rough,
you wouldn't understand,"
and swallow another truth
like it's poison wrapped in
a plastic fork
and a lie that boys are born invincible.
he's drowning
in a sea of
"man up"
"get over it"
"stop being dramatic"
but his lungs
never learned how to breathe
in a world where being okey
is the only option for boys.
they don't see him.
not really.
not when he whispers
"i'm not okey"
and they laugh
thinking it's a joke.
but this isn't a punchline
this is a lifeline.
unraveling.
and if you look close enough,
you'll see
a boy
not broken-
but breaking.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
In the darkness, a voice cries out,
a shattering scream in the midnight hour.
Trust turned to ash, shattered and raw,
beneath the weight of an unwanted power.
Hands that should heal become claws that tear,
and silence grows louder in the air.
A soul splintered, seeking the dawn—
to rise again, though battered and worn.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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Arno Niem Poem
He counted crumbs like guilty prayers,
bones beneath his skin like snares.
His stomach twisted, night and day,
but all he ever said was “I’m okay.”
In crowded halls he walked alone,
his silence louder than a phone.
A smile he painted, thin and weak,
his voice a whisper he couldn’t speak.
He hid his heart in shades of gray,
afraid of what the world would say.
A boy who loved but couldn’t tell,
trapped inside his private hell.
He dreamt of friends, of someone near,
but walls grew thicker year by year.
IBS burned, his body frail,
an unseen war he could not hail.
At night he stared at ceilings high,
and wondered softly if he’d die.
He wrote in notebooks, line by line,
“I’m still a person. Please see my sign.”
But no one came, no voices called,
his messages like leaves that fall.
The weight he carried, sharp and deep,
grew heavier each time he’d sleep.
One evening, shadows filled his room,
his heart beat slow with growing gloom.
A note half-written, ink still wet,
words of pain and deep regret.
Then—silence. Curtains drawn.
A life, a boy, forever gone.
No one saw the final part,
they only found his note, his heart.
And now his name is spoken low,
an empty desk, a face they know.
A story told so others learn:
see the signs before they burn.
Don’t let another fade away,
reach for them before that day.
A boy is more than pain or shame,
a life is more than just a name.
Copyright © arno niem | Year Posted 2025
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