I grew up in suburbia-
With picket fences as white as the faces
Who say they're godly enough to save babies
(As long as they're not queer)
Because we don't have to live with the fear
Of corpses lining the sidewalks
Of our perfectly landscaped yards
We have no guards firing on peaceful protestors
Because our children are filed into orderly lines
Laid out for them at birth
But for what it's worth, we teach them of racism
From a white textbook that lies about founding fathers
Where segregation is just a word and
Oppression is hardly even mentioned.
Our children, who play at the age of 6
And lose their innocence at the age of 16
Suburbia is a life of it's own,
Gangly arms and legs
Like the teenagers who starve themselves
And steal their parents liquor
Just to get drunk quicker
Ignorant of those on the streets dying of hunger
No wonder I yearn to be far from this hell I call home.

Allen Ginsberg once said
“America I’ve given you all and now I am nothing”
The Wonder Years once said
“Suburbia I’ve given you all and now I am nothing”
But I’ve found fallacies in both of these,
I feel it’s more like
Suburbia I’ve given you all
And now I’m an awkward 20 year old
Who doesn’t know how to talk to black people
Suburbia I’ve given you all
And now I’m way too confident walking around the city at night
Because I forget there are communities
Where people actually have to lock their doors,
Suburbia I’ve given you all
And now I have a 16 year old brother
Who thinks the word *** and **** jokes are funny
Suburbia I've given you all
And now my father hates that I'm for gender equality
Well dear daddy,
I hope this offends you.

Because I am offended
By a community that tells **** victims they were asking for it
I am offended by a community
That tells my best friend Liam
That he's just confused, that
His love for Adam is an abomination
I am offended by a community
That offers equality as thinly veiled oppression,
With houses decorated in the decadence of degradation,
All the while their perfect sons and daughters
Are dying of depression because
The hilt of a gun is so much quicker
Than the drugs of their addiction

Suburbia, you are the seed of suicide
Feeding off of your violent silence,
Your white fences slice our tongues
And leave us mindless.
Suburbia, you have betrayed us.
Taught us ignorance is bliss with
Algebra instead of how to do taxes,
Spent more time worried about
Girls' shoulders instead of *** education,
Taught me not to speak unless
My hand was raised as if praise
Is given to authority without question,
Funny how they forgot to mention
Our country was founded on rebellion.

But suburbia, I forgive you
And so I humbly ask of you,
Find the keys of compassion within the heart and
Shed the lock of ignorance that grips your mind
The door may be rusted but it can open with time
Suburbia, I beg of you
Join us in the war of love
Let us all raise our fists and
Paint peace signs on our wrists,
We are disobedient dandelions swaying in the sun,
Words of kindness rolling off our tongues
Like pacifistic shots of a gun
Firing respect instead of rounds
And burying hate instead of bodies in the ground.

I come here to be happy,
To find my place
And teach myself how to be
A true writer.

To me it seems
I try.
I try to speak,
Show myself,
Do what I am supposed to do here.
I am told to be myself,
There is no blending in.
And yet, it seems I have to.

No one cares. I cry
And they stare and walk past.
I had more support and reassurance
In the place where I was bullied and tormented
Daily.

And here,
Daily,
I am alone.
Cliques formed and I was, once again,
And outcast.

I want to be murdered.
I believe that muder
is an intimate,
passionate,
even ****** thing,
and God,
it sounds heavenly.

There no longer is light in once brightly lit blue eyes
The light has faded being overrun by
Rotting alone with the steam of the bath drawn
High in heat and low in self esteem
She sits wrinkling in her own decaying moods
The razored edge pressed against the bite plain palm of her left hand
The nails on her right too bitten and bruised from a nervous tick
That was earned over the formidable years of solitude
In the presence of a man, women or child
She chewed those nails untill only ****** stumps remained
To hold the blade against the skin
As she slits the frightened skin, it splits open against the cool metal
Repeatedly freezing her dead beating heart
Giving jumps to an amnesiac heart that forgot
The drums in which it beat alongside to the tune
Peeling at the edges to reveal a rotten core
Oozing with an unknown slime
The black coloured lumps of already clotted blood
From the twenty times before
She took the razor again in her hands
Again and
Again and over
Again.
Slowly and always she's been cutting off her life line
One slit of the vein at a time
Exposing the eroded mess of a body
And the tangles of a decomposing brain that is
Wishing away her life upon a dream
A dream inside the dream of a life that was not her own
The model who lives in anorexia, who cannot actually breathe
But it is what she wishes.
So her bones jut out like flags against the bathtubs silkiness
Her face is sunken, a hallowed place with no life
Her bones etched and engraved with years of fear
From the "dimples" and layers of fat that stuck to her like glue
The "flab" that was skin that hung loosely from her ribs
An aspiration that caused this illness
And set her on the course of searching for a homedial cure
Yet, she is not thin enough, so she cuts away the flesh upon her body
With salt mixing with soap
From her once bright blue eyes and
The suds within the steaming water
That lap against her skin like a cat tongue
Roughly tormenting her already devoured soul
A harsh reminder of what she could never have
So the resolution she came up was to carve away her insides
To give away her vitals to the poor children in the world
In an attempt to be rendered thin and to disappear from plain sight
But she still can't choose what stays and what fades away

I am only human.
I am very human.
I am barely human.
I am rarely human.
I am never human.

you aren't a hero
stop trying to save me,
i don't need your help,
or your pleas for
the old me.
i never chose
the life i am living,
nor did i choose
to be the person i am today.
you cannot do anything,
to guide be back
to the me you used to know,
so please stop trying.

You trace my skin with your eyes,
And your lips follow.
(My body tenses)
Up my breast, down my spine,
Thigh, mouth, thigh, neck, oh ****.
(Try to breathe)
You shower me with kisses
And you hold me with your smile.
I feel you. We are the same.
You sleep with at least one inch against me.
(You held my hand when we walked home)
You care.

I give up, I'm in love.