No matter what I do,
I am just a little girl
Standing alone in a pink party dress
Watching ashes fall through blackened trees
And even if I run as fast as I can, I cannot catch them all
Before their chaotic tumble burns acid scars into the ground
I sprint as fast as I can but soon I am swallowed whole
All except for one white high-heeled shoe
Time and the ashes will mold it to the fitting of this bloodstained world
A forgotten funeral monument
For a girl who had failed to be a bright enough light

I know what you told me
But it was a lie

I will never, never be enough

I watch the pendulum swing on my Grandmother’s old clock.
It’s three hours and twenty minutes off, and she can never fix it.
She keeps it anyways.

When I was little I used to sit in front of it
And sing along when each hour hit
Three hours and twenty minutes off.

The old clock used to wake me up at night
And I’d climb down off the top bunk
To check that it was three hours and twenty minutes off.

Now the clock is shoved in a corner,
Old and forgotten,
But still three hours and twenty minutes off.

My Grandmother’s new husband fixed the old clock.
He did what my Grandmother could never do.
The old clock is no longer three hours and twenty minutes off.
It will never be again.

I'm at a party. I've been avoiding these things since the start of college, but this time, a lot of my team and new friends were going. They all ordered me to come. It was one of those I-should-just-get-this-over-with moments with a bit of peer pressure and caring-what-others-think-of-you sprinkled on top.

They're drinking. Of course.

A friend offers.
I can't
C'mon.
No really, it'll make me sick.

Sure, it's written in my genes but if I was careful I probably could join in their "fun." A sip wouldn't hurt.

But I won't. Ever. 17 years old and I won't go near the stuff for the rest of my life.

I've watched it steal health from his heart, watched his hands shake and his words slur. The alcoholic's drunk is a state closer to death than many of us will ever see and return.

But even normal drunk is a dark place. I've watched it turn her bitter and angry, a petulant child and tired mother all at the same time.

There is a hollowness to the eyes, an empty well where awareness once rested. A slowness of the tongue, a shallow shouting, temper tempest rising. It is relationships in ruins, it is words at our weakest, vilest and worst. It is the smell lingering on the breath, it makes me want to pass out and cover my nose just to breathe.

Everyone's entitled to do what they want with themselves, I suppose. But if I could wish alcohol away from the world I would. **** your pain, your awareness some other way Have college parties you'll actually remember the next morning.

You're not really you anymore when you're drunk.
And I like you just the way you are.

It's a waterfall.
You know, the kind that cascades hard like
the white water rafting trips' featured waves
and just when you think they've calmed,
they're back even stronger.

They said they had their suspicions.
You've been more flamboyant.
You don't want to dress like your gender.
Stereotype, stereotype, stereotype.

But to be accused,
WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US
To be yelled at,
YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DISAPPOINTED IN YOU THEN?
To wish you were anywhere else but here...
Somewhere over the rainbow...

But I'll never be over the rainbow.
Contrary to her belief,
it's not a phase or something I'll grow out of.
It's genetic.
Contrary to his thinking,
it's not helping
when all my communication with
others is severed.

I'm gay.
There, I admit it.

It's not like I'm gonna scream it from the rooftops, and no,
it's not the reason that I really like bowties and short hair.

Can't you just
accept me?

The final blow
is when your family
decides you're too good
for that type of lifestyle.

WHAT MORE CAN I DO TO IMPRESS YOU?
I've tried my whole life to make you proud.

I guess this just goes to show
that being myself
will never be enough.

So leave me to my cascades and wet cheeks in bed-why do you care-
because we all know you're wishing I'm something I'm not.
Someone I'm not.

Disowning me
would have been the
far superior alternative
to the disappointment.

"Our youngest daughter is just like her father, but looks like her mother. And our oldest daughter? She looks like her father, but acts like her mother. Well...she did."

Opening the cupboard full of snacks,
I stand there for a moment and stare
Before stating, There's nothing there

What I meant is that there was nothing there that I wanted to eat

But instead, I looked at all of that food and said there was nothing there at all

I've got to be better than this...

Here and now is a pretty strange place
let's start from underneath-
we stand on two feet
what peculiar creatures we are forcing our weary, poorly engineered frames to stand up and walk every day

we make sounds at each other and all agree to pretend they make sense
i tie back the hair that dangles like remains around my face

we never want to change our ways but we force our eyes to the sky and conjure thoughts beyond ourselves
we pulse with electricity, chemistry dancing with consciousness

we've built structures that tower above our heads, we've built past, present, future we've built money, we've built music, we've built war

you shouldn't be able to reach me and yet here you are, present as light between my fingertips
why would any of you care for someone you've never met? for that matter why care for someone you know and love?

it's no wonder our brains stage mutiny so often with all of these thoughts

we're improbabilities
searching for purpose that isn't really there
we're so unlikely you can't help but shake your head at how we've made it so far

together, on our own, humans
we've made it this far

together, on our own
Humans

You've got to learn to love your part in life

Like the alto, always background to the soprano
must to come to love the harmony
There's a base to every pyramid
And maybe it's more fun to hit the high notes,
but in the end, the support is what matters most

Like Atlas and the sky
You can't just give up and
let the clouds crash into Earth below

even when the sky is crushing you
even when its weight is digging you into the ground

You have to learn to love your prisons
dying flesh, a cage for your mind
that box they've drawn around you in thick black marker lines
Not to be crossed out

I'm not saying don't try to break through
Coffins are suffocating, what wouldn't you do for one more gasp of air?

I'm just begging you to be careful
where you step, you don't have a choice other than to be smart with this

You can take an eraser to those lines until your fingers bleed,
but erasers won't do anything to marker
You move even an inch and the whole pyramid might come tumbling down
Even Atlas had to get someone to take his place before he could escape

You'll set off alarms and traps before you make it very far
The police will escort you back where you belong
So while you're planning your next attempt to get beyond the walls
you might as well decorate them
and buy a couch, a bed, a stove, make yourself at home

It's a backup plan for if you never make it out
an over the counter pain reliever that works a good fifty percent of the time

You have to learn to love where you are

even if it's choking you
*even if it makes you want to die

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