I say I'm okay
but I'm not
I'll have my good days
and I'll have my worst
but until the day
I go to bed without
a feeling of dread
or tears on the bed
pounding in my head
the inability to catch my breath
I'm not okay

I won't truly be okay
Until the day
I can say hello
without having to rehearse it
or wonder if I said it
too quiet
or too loud
if it even came out
and worrying if
the conversation will go past that

If the most I say
about how I'm feeling
is okay
and you had to ask in the first place
I'm probably not

If I'm more worried
if you're okay
than I'm probably not
because until I unlearn
how to pick everybody but myself up
I'm not

I say I'm okay
so you don't have to worry about me
but I'll still cling to all the care
and love you give to me
because I'm still unsure
if its all I get
so until the day
I don't feel the need
for reassurance that you care for me
I'm not okay

Until the day
I can no longer relate to this
I'm not okay
but I'm working on it

We will leave you in the midst
of a poetic truce, as you spill
experiences into our open palms.

Writing to make sense of what
has happened, nestling your
deepest secrets in our fingertips.

Our roots so deep in our poetry,
if you tried to unearth us, we would
shriek louder than banshee's.

Unravel our words, enter the
labyrinth of our minds, there are
sunsets in our stomachs, and
December runs through our veins.

We are the stars to your blank skies,
the pause between each ragged breath,
the tragedy suffocating the air.

We are the pause before the applause,
we are rarity's like Haley's comet,
making you scramble for a telescope.

Only crows writhing with broken
necks are more twisted than the life
stories resting under our tongues.

We are poets, engraved in history,
fluent in all that is artistic and worldly.

Poetry is a warm blanket we remain
hidden in on a cold winter morning.
Reality is a cold floor that our
bare feet are too scared to touch.

*By Rapunzel and JannaLee Perry