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Feb 2019
You can have this city
If it means I get to breathe
If it means, I get to reconnect
With this other half of me

For twelve nights now
I've tried to see
How I can be so enjoying
And so fulfilling,
And yet so empty

I am both the entertainer
And the curtain drawer
The nail and the hammer
And yet I've never felt better
Being all of the ground under

I am safer and this feels normal
To live in the background like shadows
And I'm following you around
But I know you'll never catch me
Because it's simple, why would he

It's simple that, to you, I never am to be found
With all of this beauty that surrounds,
Why would you ever think or care to look down

Why would you ever even think to look at me
When I am so much of distortion and thorns
Rather than pretty petals and leaves
I'm more like the remains of a rose's corpse

I'm more like the broken branch on the tree,
I'm more like
The bottom of the sea
I'm more like everything other than anything
You had seen in me

I'm more like nothing
I'm less good at holding,
I'm more broken
I'm less alive, andβ€”

I don't want to seem like
The demon of the night
But angels don't break like me
Angels save, angels love

I'm nothing but love that
Is never enough

So you can have this city
If it means I get to lay beneath it
If it means the water washes me
And there's no trace or a footprint

For over twelve nights now
I've tried to see
How I can be so enjoying
And so fulfilling,
And yet so empty

And so I'm going home
To be with family
To be in my room, with my ceiling fan
That knows just how mad I can be

I am safer and this feels normal
To know I could actually lock my own door
And these four walls have seen the way I've grown
And what I've kept inside me for so long
And it's simple, why would she

I've been doing this for eighteen
And it's simple what it means
Home is where I brew
And I will die here, too
Julia Betancourt
Written by
Julia Betancourt  19/New York
(19/New York)   
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