You never liked the way I tapped my fingers against my mouth when I got nervous. A constant mirror to your father’s each night your mother didn't come home. Did you ever wonder about the man across town? Did you wait for her at the crack of your bedroom door because you wanted her to say goodnight? Another broken ritual you couldn’t piece together. Everyone leaving the back door open when they knew mom was never coming home. Did you realize a stranger might come and pull the trigger? Was that that what you wanted all along? Someone hums a song out of tune. Always out of tune. Always wishing that you were anywhere but here. Like you should be running away to Neverland because this home was starting to crack at the foundation. A campfire that slowly died out before you were finished singing Kumbaya. No one around to hold your hand and sway along to the beat. Didn't you always feel like you were born with two left feet? Like something about you didn't quite fit with the rest. You lived life as a puzzle piece that got put back in the box because there wasn't a spot for you left. But what you didn't notice was how you were just mixed up in the wrong picture. Someone long ago forgot to tell you how you were made of sunflowers instead of roses, and now you don't know where you belong. More lyrics to a song that has no music. A ship with no sail. A tree that can't grow leaves. Just a broken part of the whole. And no matter how many times somebody says it's going to get better you still won't make a wish when you blow out your birthday candles. People don't understand that the light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train carrying every person you have every tried to love.

my mother warned me
about drugs and alcohol
how they claim your body as their own
and destroy the lives they touch

but she never told me
about the dangers of a boy
whose smile streams through my veins
stronger than any narcotic.