It's tough holding on
It's tough trying to be selfless
It's tough acting as the glue
That holds all the broken pieces.

It's tough pretending each new day
It's like piling dirt on a corpse
Constantly resurfacing, never fully hidden
Until it's so high, this mound of yours.

But you can't parade a corpse in public
It's smelly. It's ugly. It's dead.
So grab that shovel and dig dig dig
Until your pretty hands are bled.

I open the old, dusty attic window
Closed for so long, house of another Charlotte
And though it takes time, and the dust,
Still, I open the old, dusty attic window.

I had no plans on sneezing, no dust
will make me sneeze, is what I said
And I had time to spare, if there ever
was time to be nostalgic, it was this.

I open, open the old, dusty attic window
And see, through both black and white and
colored, simultaneously, I see the memories
Flashing back, like they weren't mine.

Are they real? Yes, they are. They just
don't feel like they come from me.
More like I'm audience inside me
Through the old, dusty attic window.

I play through the see-saw, and
slide down the slide, swing through
the swing, all the while with
different, many, many different people.

But she is the one I remember most.
She makes me sneeze, from the dust.
I should have known, and I sit
And watch the two of us, just the two of us.

How she would share the slide, and
push my swing with her might
And how I'd refuse to let her play
Just make her push me, and push.

How she'd be the tag, and look
and look for me, only to realize
That I have left her, have left
her counting, and hoping, and alone.

How I'd push her so she'd hurt
herself. How I'd almost push her so
she'd still get hurt anyway. How
she'd look up and smile and stand.

How she'd sometimes go quiet, some-
times go sad, though she'd never
really show, and still smile, and
push my swing and play with me.

How I'd turn my back when I think
she needed me most, and convince
myself that for some reason she
deserved it, to be alone.

And I wonder now, when I turned my
back, did she ever cry? Was I important
enough to have called to surface
The tears she so effectively can hide?

Did she love me enough that she
could endure? Or was I nothing so
she could shrug off the
bullyings that I did?

And I close the old, dusty attic window
Because she makes the dust make me sneeze.
And I still sneeze, because she always could,
Always, make the dust make me sneeze.

And now that she's in another playground
With more willing playmates who don't leave
Her alone in hide & seek, I wish to go
back and have her again.

And I think if I could have moved on
To the next playground with her, would
she still have played with me,
Although she is well-loved by others?

And I know (like I always have, only that I was
too selfish to acknowledge) that I have
hurt her, and she did not deserve
But still she stayed with me.

And I will always sneeze from her dust
Her way to remind me, my way to remind me
That for all the times she smiled, for all the times I
hurt her, I hurt myself more.

But, really, you have to remember
That they had as much choice
As you did when you
Had to get to work at six.

They might’ve wanted
Someone with a birthmark
Light-brown, heart-shaped,
Say, on the left arm.

They might prefer those
Straight teeth, white and all,
To go with a smile
Whenever you come and check.

I bet they would’ve chosen
A soft touch, warm and friendly
Not the only ones (you think)
You can provide, given the time.

And who knows, maybe they also
Sigh with relief when,
Come two o’clock, charts closed,
You take off your nurse’s cap.