What are you hiding from
In the grand pictures you paint

Surely you must know by now
That stories are only stories
Never mind the gold coating your fingertips
And dripping sweetly from your lips

Did you really think you could forget
In the shadows of this ink
That this is all you have

Drown me in acrylics
So I may become art,
Abstract at best;

And write my hidden name in charcoal
A hundred times upon my skin
So I won't forget.

Why wont they leave me alone
These voices they scream for you
You stand off to the side
So close but so far away
You left me so why are you watching me
You left me but you didn’t really leave
You watch me with you devil eyes
Always tracing my steps
I want you to leave me alone
But you wont
I have tried to escape your grasp
But you keep pulling me back
I just want you fucken gone but you wont leave
Please just leave me be
I am begging you
Please leave

Speaking is an art
words like paint
we smear and spread out our ideas onto canvas

If you paint too fast-
**** it
you might make a mistake

Did you know paint can expire?
you think come one, paint?
paint can't go bad!
then you try and use it and its separated and chunky
and boom
your whole piece is ruined.

Words can expire too.
did you know that?
phrases and metaphors age turn ugly and contaminating just like the paint
they might have been usable once, but now
you'd better get some new words.

Like, when referring to someone who uses a wheelchair
people don't say they're crippled.
because that word has expired!

The same way simpleton was used to
refer to someone with intellectual disabilities
was is the key word there.
please for the love of god don't call anyone a simpleton

Lunatic was once used to refer to people with psychiatric disabilities
don't say the teacher who gave you homework on a Friday is a lunatic!

******* was used to refer to people with intellectual disabilities
but now you should NOT call anyone or anything *******!
because it is inappropriate and insulting

This isn't about taking away your words
it's about what you are taking away from people with disabilities
when you use language like that.
what you are stripping away from people
when you decide to use a word like

*******
gimp
deformed
disfigured

Freak
insane
lame
******

*****
spaz
stupid
whacko

Knock it off!
when you decide to use those words
it takes away from anyone who has a disability
or anyone who every will.

Use a different word
use swear words
find a thesaurus.

Get some new **** paint

i used to see the world in grey,
few things ever appeared in color;
i was desperately searching for a way to paint my surroundings,
but none of the pigments ever came out right.

there are days where i see rainbows everywhere,
rainbows in a puddle, in a car, even in an old lady’s hair...

but the grey always has a way of creeping in again.

it is not easy to plug a spilled bottle of paint back up,
it gets messy;
it gets in your hair, on your hands...
and even after you’ve washed it all away, you can still see it under your fingernails.
the grey has a way of sticking like that, too.

for so long i felt i would never be able to see things the way they truly are,
my vision has been compromised with a permanent filter
but i stopped minding it that much.
the unusual becomes normal when it is all you know.

I’m trying to express how I feel like I did as a child,
Through crayons and pencils
Pressed into paper until they break in two.
How can I feel so hopeless
Doing something I used to love to do?
Like I did as a child
I make myself small and cry in my closet
That painful sobbing that hurts your throat
And convince myself yet again to give up.