As hard as it is to color outside the lines It’s even harder when you have the wrong coloring book to begin with The kids who wanna be the blue or the pink That the world recognizes as right When they were born into the wrong colors Their mother held them under the wrong ballon It should have said “congratulations it’s a tough fudging road ahead” It could have said love lets say love Instead of he instead of she lets call them everything Cause its for shame that their name won’t fit Any better than the clothes that don’t fit Somedays a dress is barbed wire knit onto the flesh of a boy Crying help me, I’m so lost and i wanna go home This world is filled with hearts without shells Bodies with doormats that say “welcome to hell” Its not lack of trying people are dying To be the right shape of girl the right shape of boy When the world told them they’re not the right shape of anything
That night when he said “i’ll never be the man I’m supposed to be” But “she” never fit me and I just wanna fit I didn’t know how to say i’m sorry I couldn’t say I know and mean it So i just held him in the rain His body gave way Felt pieces in my hands The wreckage sobbing against my chest Until all that was left was a cleft heart Torn between trying to fit into his own skin And trying to stretch his own skin fit him His skin begs for normal Like a dying plead like a prisoner on death row begging to be free Later he said he wished he’d never said normal When he tried to tell me what he wished he could be He knew when he said it It meant breaking down every shelter he’d ever worked to build In a single second a bomb can be dropped And some bombs take lifetimes to build The bombs we build out of our own skins Fitting them around the word normal like it’s our only hope We’re making rope for the hangings and then asking why Writing music for the hate songs and saying baby don’t you cry Those songs are so loud they keep him awake And it feels like a nightmare and he can’t break free He’s so tired I wanna wrap him in sleep lift him up to the stars and say “look, this is beauty “ I think he’s so beautiful it’s hard to look at him sometimes I wanna say “ I’m sorry that I think he’s beautiful” When his body feels like quicksand I wanna hold out my hand And promise to save him But his body is a trap not safe from the bombs That drop so loud they stop him from sleeping So I’m keeping every piece of him as he falls apart I’m calling him everything So he knows he can be whatever he wants He can be a ferris wheel, or a gumdrop, or a bow tie, or a pink sky I hold his tears on my lips Try to kiss away every name they ever hurled at his body Every hate line they’ve ever drawn in his coloring book Every time they’ve told him he’s not what he’s supposed to be He’s already gone so many rounds with his own demons And the time bomb on the clock is screaming for mercy I know the scars on his chest are nothing compared to the rest of them Sticks and stones are nothing compared to the rest of it His bones hurt from calling each other names That leave bruises on his insides So i’m standing ringside watching his boxing match against the world And wishing with all that I have That the world looses And he wins the title of everything