A Black House and a White House,
       Lived on opposite ends and worlds,
Were merely divided by a Grey Fence.

The Black House made bricks of unknown,
                  So the Grey Fence was taller,
The White House made bricks of misjudgment,
            So the Grey Fence was wider.
The White House dug trenches of resentment,
                Then the Grey Fence had depth,
The Black House made bob-wires of pride,
                     So the Grey Fence had spikes.

The Black House and White House
Made improvements to the Grey Fence,
Until it was insurmountable, but hence
Came at the expense of the land of their houses.

They went back to living in their own worlds.
Settlers saw opportunity in the Grey Fence.
Doors, windows, furniture made it into house.

The Grey House was the tallest,
Wideness made it the biggest,
With trenches and bob-wires as protection,
The beaut besting between the three.

The White House got a sour sledgehammer,
The Black House an envious ripping bar,
The White House a jealous jackhammer,
The Black House a beguile bulldozer.

Both houses were going hammer and tongs,
Trying to demolish what they had built.
Minutes, hours, day after day and beyond
But the Hate, the Grey Fence, was rock solid.

Pigment caked under my nails.
Tasting the metallic remnants of a lost childhood.
The reality is hidden in visions and supposed dreams.
Fed to me, was the comforting hugs of mother and soothing lies.
Grew up in the age of paid horror.

A new appendage is cheaper than keeping the original.
Marked by the price of my body.
Each fall, subtracting, each workout, adding.
Beauty is a curse nowadays.
Each beautiful child is raised and sold for millions.
Each ugly child prays to be one of the lucky to receive the new parts.

Greedy families hope for attractive offspring,
to disassemble for a new future.
A pair of brilliant green eyes can change your luck.
Having blue eyes guarantees you to be blind.
Leaving you with shades to cover the hollow left behind.

Adults will tell you sports lead to a promising future.
But they don’t tell you that it’ll lead you to losing your body.
Self-harm is a death sentence. A cut drops your value.
It forces you into the career of taking.       Taking the beauty from the beautiful.
Cutting a limb or two won’t hurt them. Taking an eye is just life.
Tell yourself they should know better. They should’ve expected it.
Expect the unexpected when you are beautiful. Expect a life of pain.
Expect misery and lose those emotions when you are ugly. You won’t need that conscience.

Forget about the forgotten already. Use that arm to grab a new leg.
Use your head to get a better one.
Use your emptiness to end others. They won’t need that life.
And don’t forget, to use your misery.
The more miserable you are, the better off the world is when you end it.

Stagnant, though I've made all this progress.
Recently thinking makes it hurt more,
but for a moment today
I really put the pieces together.

This painful youth, there was a fire raging inside
and it hurt and it made my heart race.
Today I tried to pick up where I left off

and

and?

and I watched it crumble in my hands?

Confused, I took a hard look, and that fire had gone out.
Disbelief.
His name still rings in my mind infrequently, all on its own.
Those sweet memories still in striking detail, I reach for them.
A moment of reunion, a moment.
And you feel stupid for never realizing you'd miss that time,

that you.

And, you know, I've never been closer to all that I've worked for.
And I couldn't care less, I've never felt more empty.
I'm so alone and it'll be a long long time before I ever feel something like that again. If I ever do.
I didn't need to love him to feel that kind of shame.
Every investment I made in my new freedom this summer made me creep back inside myself, slowly, until drinking and dressing up became a new trauma.

The fire was something to live for,
now I just feel like a rectangle.

With words so harsh
She's trying to comfort me
telling me I have to think rationally
She can't hear her own voice
But I,
I do
I hear it more clearly than I would like to
My once beloved melody
That now only hurts

Does my strength
Make you afraid
Thunderstruck
Tongue-tied

Does my strength
Break all these rusty
Dusty taboos
Stuck in your head

Does my strength
Rebuild your thoughts
Polishes your mind
Brand new, alive.