I've grown up with wide eyes and a wider smile.
Messy short hair and dirt on the end of my nose.
I loved people and the world I lived in was magic.
Cruelty didn't exist.

As loving as I was
I always kept my mouth shut.
Cause everyone always had gaping mouths and bug eyes
When I'd simply speak my mind.

I've learned to sift through my thoughts and emotions just like flour.
They have always been the worth of dust anyway.
Taken for nothin.
Still I just kept it all to myself.
Sometimes I'd mess up and it'd slip out
and if I got those dropped jaws
I'd stick my nose in the air and pretend
I didn't care.

Writing was my only way out and my journal knew me better than my lifelong friends.
I knew everyone around me, I could practically read minds.
Still my mouth only opened now and then
but mostly just a strong, closed dam.

Now that I'm out on my own
Without people always hovering like vultures, picking at every little thing
that flies out of my mouth,
It's hard not to just let it all fall out.

I've kept a mask and a crusty outside and anything else you could possibly think of
To make sure I never crushed someones delicate eggshells.
My tongue tip toed around words.
To others it always looked like I was putting myself out there
And never worrying
About the wondering stares.

But now I'm just sick of it.
If I'm mad I wanna yell it.
If I'm sad I wanna cry and burst at the seams I kept so well knit.
If I think you're a pretty stranger I wanna say so
I want to be the person I've hidden from the world
Cause I just was never welcomed.

This world is so used to pretending to be delicate flowers but when it comes to others
They stomp and rip people apart.
Plucking every last petal.

I am so tired of pretending you're all delicate.
Like you can't handle it
Cause it was never fair that I didn't get to be who I've always been because you could shout the loudest.
And I'm not mean, but if I have an opinion, and you don't agree
Then stop telling me I'm too young to understand.
Stop telling me I'm crazy or off the bend.

I'm not ignorant, I actually get it.
And ya maybe sometimes its ******* offensive, so what?
I'm learning who I am and sometimes that might come off wrong
But I'm stumbling along
With little to no help from you all.

Everyone has a rule book for how everyone should act.
This is how it's done
This is how its gotta be.
Well to me, you're all just annoying.

I'm just sick of being pushed and shoved and buried.
Somewhere I can't be seen anymore
SO therefore
I can't be heard either.

Well I'm just going to push through the crowd.
I'm gonna make sure that I break free from this "norm"
Whoever deemed it to be just that.

Stop telling me,
For Christ's sake,
Stop telling me how to be myself.