You were an array of red flags
that challenged me at every twist and turn.
You declared war on the weak and wounded
who did nothing to you in return.

Eventually I threw up the white flag
and surrendered myself to you.
I succumbed myself to a prison
I didn't commit any crimes to get into.

I wish I had a hidden talent
that could bring a crowd to its knees.
I can barely balance
on both feet,
yet alone sing a solo
or play water polo.
I can't put others in a trance
when I dance,
or speak to a crowd,
or even make my parents proud.
No one will ever notice me
when all I can write is poetry.

This place is a home.
There's a dining room table
I can do my homework on
and a kitchen I can burn down.
This place is still a home
Even though there's nobody
to come home to after a long day's work
or someone to sit and have dinner with.

No, this place will never be a home.

In this house everybody
looks at their phones
instead of their family.
In this house the kids
take their dinner upstairs.
In this house the parents
fight in the middle of the night.
No, this place will never be a home.
This place is just a house
that I just so happen to live in.

With you I'll feel forever young
even when I'm old and gray,
running and jumping under the sun  
until the last of summer fades.
You'll always be the breath in my lungs
that turns the dark into the day.

Only I could see her halo
and its heather hinted glow
as she pushed a cart down aisle eight
and selected a sack of seedless grapes.

I bet her voice sounds smooth like a lullaby,
I bet she bears wings that take her to the sky.
But I'll never know if she really is an angel,
because girls like her don't dance with devils.

She cries herself to sleep every night,
shivering under the covers, trying to fight
the demons that haunt her dreams.
Yet to others everything isn't as it seems.
A smile stretched across her round face,
pushes everyone's suspicions away.

She wishes she could push away the demons
the same way she pushes away her feelings.

I want to be famous
so I can escape this deadbeat town,
full of people who buzz like bees
and spread rumors like honey.
I want to leave this town
so I can leave you behind
like last week's trash,
and be free from the chains
and teeth that gnash.
I want to leave you behind
so I can bloom bright and beautiful.
Because when you're around
the only thing I can do is drown.