I lie awake remembering
as sunset's drawing near
of golden days far in the haze
of loving without fear
I lie awake remembering
your hands soft on mine
saying see that you love me
of having enough time
I lie awake remembering
when nights are filled with pain
us dancing in the sunrise
and singing in the rain
I lie awake remembering
how much I miss it all
the touch of you, the feel of you
I won't forget at all

Hello, 4am, it's me again,
Hello, grandmother, I'm sorry I never called you again,
Hello, mother, father, I wish it was me speaking

How many times do I have to say it, Son? It's just your emotions,
Father, it feels like my emotions are waves, and I'm at war with the ocean,
Momma, I was kinda hoping that you'd listen while I still had the chance to say something

I guess this is all for boasting,
Maybe if I share it online, my name will get a couple of postings,
My twitter feed will grow famous,
My pretty and depressed Tumblr blog will attract the ones like them, the ones who use sadness as an accessory,
The ones who don't take it seriously, but really just "hate themselves more than anything",
I can't ******* take any of you seriously,
Seriously, there's a monster in my head and it's burrowing itself out to cover for me

I'm not even here anymore,
I might as well not even pretend to be,
It's hard to be bright when the dark is all that you see,
She, is all that I see,
He, is all that I see,
Them, they, are all that I see,
I don't want to ******* see anything,
I just want to melt the ice and see the roses in the spring

But don't mind me,
It's not like I'll make any of this apparent for others to see,
It's kind of hard to do something like that when the blue you see is black to me and the grass is grey, not even a little green

Trust me, I've tried the drinking,
And yes, I've tried the smoking,
But none of it is helping, not even a little bit, I still feel it, I still see it,
I still feel hollow
I don't want to be alone,
I just want to feel at home,
But I don't

I'm tired,
I'm tired

I called God to ask him if I could still get into Heaven if I killed myself,
The operator told me that God called in sick today,
Take this as a plea for help, yes,
Take this back to your home, yes,
Take this into consideration, yes,
Take my life,
I just want someone to take it before something else does

3.
If I blink hard enough, all of this will go away,
I wish you would just go away,
I have lived in your shadow for way too long, I need to get away,
Why can't I get away, I would do anything to get away,
You do anything to get your way,
You drink from the bottle while staring at me and the only words I have the guts to say to you are, "I love you", regardless of how badly I can feel the sting in my chest

2.
It's working, but I'm still in love with you,
I stopped dreaming in circles because my mind has grown so tired of the thought of you that the only thing that pops into my head when your name is mentioned is, "****, this hurts, a lot",
I still smile on rainy days and I still laugh at my friends jokes, but neither of those things make me smile as hard as the first time I held your hand, or the first time you joked about how your cat had a thing where he'd lay on your head when you were trying to fall asleep,
You're always in my head when I'm trying to fall asleep,
I just wish you weren't

1.
****, this hurts, a lot,
But I'm trying,
I can do this,
Your mother always told you not to stay out passed your bedtime, but no fun ever happens before midnight,
I hope you think of me in your drunken stupor,
When you were drunk, you used to call me and tell me that you thought I was the best thing in the world, that you loved me, that I was everything right for you,

I'm blinking continuously now, but none of it is helping,
****, this hurts, a lot,

If I was everything right for you, why did you only talk to me when everything bad was happening to you

I don't know what it means to be a good person anymore.

It was easier when my head was full of pigtails
instead of politics,
when good was opening doors
and doing your chores.
When it was easier to pick out the bad.

Children are gifted with innocence
and a diagram shaded with generalizations
that their parents hold as truths.
Mine shaded family members green,
male strangers red.
Mine shaded police officers green,
black people pink -
a whisper of bigotry, a silent justification.
Mine shaded teachers green,
playground bullies red.
But when innocence fades,
colors mix
and saturations grow stronger.

My grandma tells me that she wishes she could think like me
because she grew up
in a world without rainbows,
where white was good,
and everything else was bad.
But I don't know what good is
when all I see is gray.
It's not a generalization or a stereotype.
I'm not whining because I countlessly fail at using my privileges to help people,
I'm shouting
because I've been beaten down with criticism
for trying to be what I thought was
good.
My vision has been fogged with fear,
and whatever shade of green that trust used to be
is bleeding burgundy.
*What the hell does it mean to be a good person?

I don't wanna ******* hear about it,
Stop trying to get your **** wet,
She doesn't want you, I figured you'd realize that when she told you to stop; that she was uncomfortable,
What made you think she was just being stubborn,
What made you think the only thing in the world she wanted was to have *** with you,
Why are you like this

Women are not just toys,
Women do not want your **** as much as you think they do,
Women especially do not want your **** when all you can say when you're around them is jokes implying that you want to **** them,
Why the **** do you think you're entitled to their bodies,
They are angels and you are the devil,
Please, for the love of God, give it up

It makes me sick to think that you're sick enough to think you have a right as a man to act this way,
That because you have a ******* for a woman, that it's completely okay to force yourself,
That it's completely okay to act filthy,
That it's completely okay to joke about,
That it's completely okay to be the biggest ******* on this planet

Our sisters are being taken by our brothers and we are not doing anything to stop it,
Our diamonds are being stolen by thieves, and all we are doing is slapping their wrists,
Why can't we stand up and stop this


Why does a woman have to feel afraid to stand up for herself,
Why does a woman have to fight what seems like an endless battle for a right to her own ******* body,
Why do we stick up for rapists,
Why do we call women *****,
Why do we congratulate men for using women,
Why do we stand for this

We are doing this to ourselves,
We will learn eventually,
Or maybe not,
We reap what we sow

what they don't know is that I said "absolutely not" to his offer of marriage as I laughed through shiny teeth and then we made sweet sweet love upon his former companions divan and we desecrated  the room we burnt that **** Down he lit 300 candles on fire to profess his burning passion to me and he proved it to me with his eyes and drooling lips I can't believe I believed the lie I was blinded by the orange glow that I so loved it made my intestines quiver as I gargled salt water I felt like  Mumbai as the colors surrounded me but the stench overwhelms me I could not breathe and for a moment I felt safe in my own skin as I lay there listening to the uneven sound of his breathing and the way his heart beat matched mine, I'm not joking, EXACTLY the soft glow of the tube flashed against the poorly painting cream walls that we left marks on it was a battle field or a storm and now we lay in the eye of that which our love is swirling about ready to destroy one another over and over and over again I can't take it my body was not made for such violence my heart begs for love and gives love only but yet it does not receive and it is not because it is incapable but it is because those who surround me are so unwilling to open theirs for fear of letting a dark being inside to shatter the windows of their home they have spent their entire lives building and because of this they do not expand they do not grow they are scared they fear and they tell themselves over and over again "I cannot do it" we all reach this point but at this moment of saying you cannot is when you must

Stages and dance rooms,
makeup and costumes.
Auditions and lead roles,
complete self control.
State capitols and groups
of professional troops.
Judging my acting,
attention attracting.
Sweat, blood, and tears.
Realizing my fears.
Blocking and accents,
and never an absence.
Rehearsing for hours,
the feeling empowers.
I live for theatre,
but may be too eager.

i want to see faces
with no traces
of the places
they're from

you're from here
i'm from there
this isn't fair
its dumb

my castle is tall
your portion is small
get against the wall
you ***

we shouldn't use pigment
to lable indignant
our souls get malignant
and numb

if we could build paradise
it would have to be nice
don't even think twice
just come

violence will stall
prejudice will fall
there will be justice for all
not some