Are you a bad person?
Or are you just hurting, and
You lash out at every single person
Who actually cares?

Do you think it makes me feel good,
Or sympathetic, when you
Spit in my face and disregard
Every beautiful moment we had?

Do you think it’s better this way,
To have so many people apathetic to you
From repeated insults, and screaming
And broken trust?
Is that better than having people love you?

I guess sometimes
You think I just don’t care
Because I don’t make my entire life
A tragedy
Just because of a chapter.

I wish I didn’t hate you
As much as I loved you
I wish our relationship was easy,
Just as sisterhood is supposed to be

I wish you didn’t get so angry
And your rage didn’t feel so routine
I wish I didn’t have to think twice
Before listening to you, wondering
If your story’s a lie, or just your warped,
Narcissistic truth

I wish this felt more like family,
And we didn’t have to talk behind your back
I wish you were happier, and freer
And less controlled by your anger

I wish you didn’t self-sabotage after
Every good thing
I wish you didn’t love me so much
Because maybe then, it would be easier

Fires igniting all around,
Burning and destructive.
And they’re in my heart, too,
Burning through the outer layers,
All the way to the core of my fear.

Fear of losing this comfortable life,
This reality where I sit calmly, routinely
Eat in peace and barely check
The news. Where the air quality isn’t
A problem, and where all of this
Goes away.

I guess the core of the fear is this, isn’t it -
Losing the routine, the comfortable,
The mundane. Feeling scared for
Loved ones, even though I know
Nothing will happen, right?
It’s too far away (getting closer), right?

I long for things.

And longing, it’s contagious
It spreads to all those around you,
Until they, too,
Dream of houses larger,
Dream of cities bigger,
Long for lives vaster.
Happier.

And I’m willing to do anything
For that dream.

Maybe art is exposing my soul,
Leaving it raw and vulnerable under
The gazes of all those
Who wander in the museum of my
Heart.

Maybe art is an exercise in understanding,
Where we strain to make sense of
Darkness we’ve never seen the depths of,
Or light that we long to be warmed by
But can’t quite reach.

Maybe art is a meeting of kindred spirits;
An understanding that you were never alone,
Even when you were drowning and no one
Could hear you scream.
Far away, your words echoed, and in
The mind of another lost soul,
They found their place on the page.

They tell you, write it with emotion.
Write it like it’s a history you’ve seen -
Describe it in burning colors,
Making a tragedy of things unseen.

But then they criticize you, tell you
It’s too graphic - that there’s no way
That was your personal war.
They’d rather look away,
Than acknowledge that it was your everyday.