you can find me in the empty street of your local alley, hiding in the crevices of the broken pavement that has its **** together more than i do, and you can see me cowering in the corner of a party too loud for me to feel comforted, and you can see me fighting back tears after every single conversation and shout of you're stupid and you don't know what to do and how will you ever make it out alive

you can't see my hands tied behind my back and my mouth taped closed by the words that hit my throat and sting my ears and make my life seem worse than the world i thought it was, and you can't see my mind racing at hundreds of miles per hour hoping that there is a way out, that blood dissipates into water, that i'll be okay, and that i need to take every **** word out of my letters who reassure me that yes i am worth it and yes my mind and my freedom is all intact unharmed and not damaged

some days i feel broken, but not the mirror that shattered into seven years of bad luck. some days i feel broken like that little black duckling that never quite got it right or that baby bird with a broken wing who doesn't know where its mother is and who looks at everyone with eyes full of sympathy because every story is worth listening to unless its my own

and other days i just want it to stop, and i want to sleep, and i want to do nothing and enjoy the sheets of my bed and the comfort of my tv and the soft pillow that supports a head too tired to hold itself up because they do not judge me
          
        they do not tell me words that push through my armor and tear me *apart