The feeling is creeping up my throat
It makes my toes tingle and burn
This rage, this sickness, this aching
That wells inside of me
I'm screaming silently
Can anybody hear me?

They don't tell you you're ******* insane
Until you outline your detailed plans to
Jump off of a building and land face down
On a one way train to Hell

When all you want is the voices that penetrate your every thought
To shut their lying mouths
Because if people could hear the things that you tell yourself
Day after day, night after sleepless night
They would have you arrested for cruelty and terroristic threats
All you want is peace and silence, just for once in your fifteen years of living.

Then, they start to rethink it
Then, they start to consider the possibility that you are not alright
And your brain is spinning and spinning and spinning
Until the dizziness is too much for your mental state
And you begin to crumble beneath their feet.

This is what happened to me
Is it what happened to you?
I miss you like crazy
The ones you left behind are still reeling
At the thought that your wound was never bandaged enough
To save your beautiful and creative mind
Your outlook on all of these tragedies inspired us to be more than human beings

And now?
We're utterly and terribly lost
In this world with no direction
Because our road maps have been tainted with blood stains and stigma

Nobody talks about it
Until it happens to them
The pain, the agony, the discontentment that comes with
The notion that you could not have saved someone
But the wish that had they stayed around
They could have saved you

And now we're the ones
Giving other people the classic Ted Talks and using
Every textbook psychology lesson you learn during your freshman gen. ed. class
"Suicide is never the answer"
"If I overcame it, you can too"

So am I just supposed to get better overnight?
I can't talk about where I am in recovery because
If I tell people that there are still times when hanging from a noose
Over the side of someone's deck somewhere
Sounds better than continuing to live in this half *** world that doesn't give a **** about me
I'd be telling the truth
But nobody wants to hear that truth.

The disappointment that flooded my parents' faces when they heard the words
"I don't want to be here anymore"
Was too much for me
And facing that kind of disapproval again
Would leave me reeling.

So now, kids all around the world face
What I face everyday
A choice as to
Grin and bear it
Or show the gritty, less than glamorous side effects of recovery
And of relapse.

Kids around the world
The survivors
The attempters
The cutters
The addicts
Are screaming
I'm not insane, I'm human
I'm not crazy, I'm recovering
I'm not an illness, I'm me.