There's a first time for everything, I guess

My initiation to the cult of harm came last night
After I'd made sure everyone had gone to bed
Crept over by the window and moonlight
Placed my arm on the altar in front of me
Mechanically, efficiently swabbing it with alcohol
Scent sterile
For even in this, I will hold onto the pretense of a rationalist

I deride myself, tell myself I'm just going through with it because it's what people would expect from the depressed
That I could stop myself easily and so it's my fault if I don't
But god, I want to lose control so badly

The needle skitters across my skin and I shiver
It dances swirls along my arm
You don't need blood and scars for pain

It scrapes angrier against my skin
And a blissful silence pierces my head
As my own voice fades from between my ears

It's a trance-like happiness
A closed-eyed, fluttering-lashes smile
A beautiful pain throbbing, bringing me back to myself
I could have stayed up hours on that one taste of losing control
But this was just an initiation so I dragged myself away

There's not a trace the next day
Except in my mind where I hunt for all acceptable forms of pain
Push on your bruises, a friend advised
Pencil tips, pens

I stop myself
I resist
I said I wasn't going down this path

I'm on my own in August, I only have to make it to then
Then help, so no more of this

I wait until everyone falls asleep again
And though I am exhausted, stumble toward the moonlight
Sterilize, needle in hand, ready to dance

I refuse to go any farther, I tell myself

Death laughs from inside my head
Baby steps he snickers and
Isn't that what you said last time, doll?

There's a first time for everything after all

I won't,
I reassure the needle tracing kisses across my skin.
I'm fine.

Run faster, laugh louder
If you keep the carousel spinning,
They won't see the paint is chipping and that the pretty white horses are seconds from falling out of place.

Faster, faster

Until everything twirls apart into space

Faster, faster

To dust, to nothing, I will go

I want to be a happy person
In a life prescribed by fairy tale
I want to sing out in faith, fall in love, dance until midnight
Surround myself in a golden haze
And to feel only the basest joy and sadness
And never think about the end of my days

But I can only long for that life
For it is barred from me, permanently
I have met Chance and
Death
And they have whispered to me
Words of unspeakable tyranny

The trade of happiness for knowledge is enough to make you want to die, my dear

I cry now at sunlight and stream
Lost in silent, silver tears
There is such beauty here

What would you give up for what was promised in a dream?
Life itself?
If you could, would you undo what has been done?

I want to be a happy person
Yet the world has run into my arms full force
I cannot help but cradle it gently
And softly sing my hopes in its ear

I whisper a lullaby
to give away the peace I will never again hold as my own.

I'll always be here for you

She stood at the edge of the world collapsing
And watched as he turned and fled
Pushing back what shadows he could
But he is one boy and a guitar
And there is not much he can do
To keep them all from rushing through
The border that is no longer

She knows she has caused this
Caused the shadows to twist from his control
As she led herself off the path
And imagined his shadows her own
But they belong to no one really

I'm sorry she cries out into the wind
Watching the cracks of light that splinter into his side

I didn't mean to break what you had
She hesitates
Watching him fight to hold the shadows back
To protect the sun he's long since left
And she's swept away by a rush of love
Even though in the air she can taste the tang of his own hate for himself

She runs without a second thought after him
Her feet dancing a web of lights into the ground

Play a song for me she calls out

Light to dark, love to hate, star to space

What do they mean without the other?
Maybe fences are always destined to fall

She reaches a hand out for the boy and points to the stars...

All in all, it's not such a bad place to be

It's a land built on dreams
with roads that follow the orderly rainbow of a Candyland board
and Sugarplum fairies who dance by your bed all year long
Even the spider's web is a prism that twinkles with light
and everything is coated and sealed with a rose gold glow

The people hold doors for each other here

They smile walking through the halls
Laughter echoes in the very walls
It was decreed that there should be a nationwide celebration
any time something good happened to someone on sunny side
so every day has turned into a holiday
The air filled with cheers and songs
and all that's left to do is twirl and spin, with ribbons in my hair, to dance...

There is only one rule in sunny side
and that is to not go off the path
DO NOT LOOK BACK

I never meant to wander astray
The flowers were so pretty, I skipped into the field
It was windier than I'd ever felt before, it whipped around my hair
I heard a hissing, loud, a vortex to all other sounds
I turned look behind my shoulder
And there the darkness was

I ran from the field as fast as I could
but I could not unlearn what I had seen
It's hard to have depth without shadows
I was tainted, no true part of sunny side, or anywhere, anymore
I found myself pulled back into the field, more and more

They had set up a white picket fence, long, long ago
to keep the darkness out
There's a boy who lives on the other side though
Last time, as I stood mesmerized by his world beyond the fence
I can't help but think he saw me

I make up my mind that I will call out to him

But when I get there, I notice the fence is cracking and crumbling
splintering away
The light and darkness rush into space to meet each other head on
and as they collide, they ignite in perfect synchrony
Dead, cold, bright and brilliant, like stars

It makes me dizzy

I look up and see that the boy has come to the fence too
flanked by shadows or soldiers, whichever they may be
The fence is falling I try to warn him, but the words are ripped away by the wind

I wonder if I have committed this crime
against the history of sunny side
for it seems neither side will matter much anymore

A new chapter will have to be written for all
The only thing left to fill those pages
will be the harmony of space
and the stars created
when the fence has finally faced its fall.

Feel his pain so strongly
That for a fleeting moment
You want to go jump off a bridge
It doesn't get any easier

Death tends to speak sweeter words than Life
Only twice today did I cave and listen

I cannot cry for myself, but I will cry for you