Skipping out the door
I'm happy I'm happy I'm happy
If I say it enough could it be more true?

I say it again
Because that's how I cope
But I never imagined I'd be so conflicted

lips taste of lies
skin smells of fear
cheeks flame with shame
eyes swell with sad tears

Oh please

Happiness is not a mantle for use
To hide from painful truths
Nor is it a protective shield
To use on a ****** battlefield

So let the fake seep out on occasion
To make room for real reactions
For then you will find the genuine kind
Will follow in orderly fashion

"What will be will be"
Seems like a cop out to me?
Where there is a will...

now i wake up at
five a.m. insuring i've
sufficient time to paint
my face on kind enough

my hands
smell like coffee
i taste blood
from blisters breaking
down and around
my smallest joints

(in control
stay in control
i have to stay
in control)

smile until my face
aches in a kind of
competitive way
because my pain will
bring no gain if i can't
seem nicer than the next girl

(i keep saying that i'm
dead inside but the irony
of the joke is that i'm actually
too alive to want these thoughts)

and i'm sure if i told anyone
that anxiety keeps me wide awake
and depression keeps me asleep
they just might not believe it

(i don't think it sounds
reasonable to say i've
got a physical and chronic
pain in my head from the
pressure of my darkest
most brutal thoughts)

when i was thirteen
i told myself never
ever to use my mental
illness as an excuse

so i plunged forward
through depression deserts
anxiety avalanches
forests of fear
tired old towns
migraine mountains
warped wastelands and
suicide swamps

and just last week
i realized my downfall
in not letting my pain
tell me when to slow down

when what i would not
allow to be my excuse
became my
disability.

"Have you no eyes?" they asked
"Can you not see?"

"Have you no ears? Can you not listen?"

"Have you no hands? Can you not feel?"

"Have you no heart? Can you not love?"

"A heart?" I laugh

"I have no heart to see the people around me
I have no heart to listen to your incessant noise and careless excuses
I have no heart to feel the world and
I have no heart to love my life."

empty 'what if's
and petty excuses
and looming regrets
'if only i had tried harder'
'if only i had the time'
'maybe, just maybe'
'i could have gotten you'
'maybe i wouldn't have failed you'
*if only

sometimes i wonder
if you are actually too busy
or if
you're just too busy for me.
i already know the answer
but when i accept it
we will be through
and i don't know what my life looks like
without you.

No job is beneath you,
For the necessities you need to fulfill,
No qualification is too little,
For the benevolence you can give another,
No house is too small,
For you to help the underprivileged,
No mind is too untameable,
For you to bear thoughts of goodness.
No heart is too small,
For you to love greater than fear.