High school has taught me a lot.

How to hurry to get my class on time
How to finish homework in ten minutes
How to get so stressed out I can't breathe
To feel like the world is falling down on me
How to accept that people are gonna leave me
But one thing it hasn't taught me
Is how to be happy.

How beautiful it is to lock your self inside
to turn the volume all the way up
and let the words of your favorite artist,
your most compatible soul, paint the bathroom walls,
with tranquil melodies.

How free it feels to let each note fill the recesses of your mind,
until you are hollow no more

How rebellious it must be stand in the spot where you and him made love, and let the warm shower water cover your icy veins and open wounds with embrace and dignity

How badly you want to scream and shout and declare your anger unto the world,
how badly you want to shatter mirrors and forget the memories,

Well darling, shatter away,
Graffiti the walls with words that make you cringe,
rip the doors off their hinges,
ignite the memories in flames till your mind is burning,
not for the past,
but for something new
something grand.

Throw the ashes in the ground and let them cultivate and grow,
into something they were never capable of being.
break down the barriers.
defy the odds of what this cookie cutter universe of fallen stars and broken dreams has to offer.

You're not like them.
you're not a fallen star,
your edges are never stagnant
you're like the sun,
you rise
you fall
you have your lows
but even when the shadows off the night lurk in,
we still see your glow.

I want you to pick me up and spin me around
And to look down to see you grinning.
I want to you to tuck  me in at night
And  check under the bed for monsters.

I wanna go back to when life was easy
And I didn't have anything to worry about
Back before everything changed.

Before I had to go to Indiana just to see you.
Before I was lucky to see you once a month
Instead of every day.
Before I felt like I had two families Instead of one.

Now I'm tucking myself in at night
And I know that monsters aren't hiding under my bed or in my closet.

I've learned that I'm too big to get on your shoulders
And I don't need to be tucked in anymore
And being my dad is all you ever have to be.

Months of waiting
Counting down the days weeks and minutes
Waiting in line for hours
In the cold and rain
All just to be in the same room as you.

To hear you sing those lyrics
That can cheer me up in a matter of minutes
As if you're singing them just to me.

To be in a room full of people who love you like I do
To hear the words that make me feel okay again
Even when I'm not.

Don't mistake survival for happiness,
Read behind the eyes,
Read between the lines,
Don't ask for an open mind,
What's inside isn't all it seems,

Take the smile as a gospel truth,
Accept normality as a guide of peace
Be appeased the simple things are easy,
The daily routine is routinely pacifying.

All I ask as I carry on keeping on,
Remember the fight I engaged to be here,
To remain here, to stand not flee,
I will not ask for concern, just remember.
Please just remember I am still fighting.