The itch of a sunburn on my skin, being home is slightly bittersweet.
A reminder that problems which trouble your mind follow you everywhere.
I'm constantly caught up in the everyday battle of deciphering what's really there and what isn't
In the sense of real ailments and anxiety.
A trouble of the mind and body, plaguing me
Making me feel like some reject, unable to live a normal life.

But it started because of something I did to myself. Underlying feelings my entire life let loose by some rampant act of idiocy. (All to impress a dumb boy. )
Irrevocable and for years now it's been an ongoing struggle.
Trying to feel normal, when I can barely remember what normal is.
Constantly feeling like I have to explain every ******* symptom to someone so I don't feel like I'm dying.
It's exhausting.
It doesn't happen every day and I thank whoever for that, because if it was....
I don't know what I would do.

Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired with all these unexplained questions. Always searching for an answer. Hypochondriac tendencies, introverted so deeply without a reason.
And the entire time I've just wanted to feel like I'm not coming undone at my seams.
That I have more of a ******* purpose than over analyzing every single feeling I have in my body on a day-to-day basis. Somehow in all of the disarray, I found someone who loves me, my gigantic flaws and all, and despite all the trouble I have, sometimes I feel like if I don't keep it to myself that he's going to leave me.
Because who wants to be with someone who doesn't work at all?

A child of a mother who was severely schizophrenic. A father who was gone for too **** long, but not by his own fault.
Resentment towards a woman who despite her problems did everything in her power to keep her two children alive, when she probably wasn't feeling so alive inside. Raised by myself, with her guidance and having to come to terms with the fact that you spent your entire young-life knowing you didn't have a dad. To having him save you in the midst of a war you didn't want to have, and that was a miracle. Realizing all you knew in your life to that point was a struggle and not the way things were supposed to be. You were freed.
Spending the next few years trying to live up to my fathers seemingly unrealistic expectations, never quite understanding that was all that he was given. Trying to make the most of what he felt was slipping through his hands, and *******. To know then what I know now.
I wasted so much time just wanting to feel loved, because I was lacking what vital fundamentals I didn't have. Thinking that's what made life worthwhile.
Years passed, and I always told myself, diminishing my life struggles because someone has had it worse. But my struggles were real, and they mattered.

Never allowing myself to say "yes, you've been through hell" and it's ****** that I have to pay for it now. A few wrong choices can ******* up real nicely. How long do I keep resenting myself instead of accepting and moving on? My life has been filled with good intentions and wrong choices. Looking back at all the things that I've seen and all the people who have come and gone, I'm absolutely joyed I have who I have now.  The few who stuck around.

The hardest part of it all is telling yourself that you're okay, that you're going to be okay. Watching the city come alive on the balcony cause you're afraid to fall back asleep. Anxiety comes with a price. You lose pieces of your sanity.

Ultimately in life's big write your own song- you learn a few things. Feeling the cold air making my hair stand on end, causing a shiver reminding me that I am alive. Without my struggles and problems I've experienced there is no way I could've shaped into the individual I am. Something to say thanks to.

A deep breath, a longer than usual exhale.  Acknowledge these feelings for what they are. I hope they won't be here forever.


-spoken word.