I'm not a monster
But my teeth are sharp
And I've got a tendency to come out after dark
I found the old me wrapped up in a tarp
Half of me in my dads backyard and the other half in my mom's shopping cart
I asked for nastolgia and all I got was growing pains
It's been another year and my rage remains the same
Growing older and growing with me
She doesn't want to separate
Finding a home inside my veins

And I still remember the way it felt to jump into your arms
Wrapped in security I could never be harmed
The security you provided was never protection
I've met several versions of the same person
I always thought he loved me but he never had
And Over and over again I wonder who he is
Till I look into your eyes and
I want to seek comfort
I want to find peace
But when I look at your eyes I see every man I've come to meet.

You were suppose to protect me
I was your little girl
It was our world and you always kept me safe,
But I didn't know that keeping me safe meant from you, or all the other yous out there that exist.
The way you loved my mother
Taught me everything a man would do.
It was not a pretty love story either if you needed a clue.

I went to the infermery, the feelings you stick me with make me so sick only for the doctor to tell me
I've been diagnosed with homesickness from a home that was never real
But a place i Long and miss.
I've tried to read between the lines of who I was and who you wanted me to be
But I couldnt ever tell
I couldn't see what you wanted from me.
Now when I look into the mirror
And I'm reminded of who you are
I take a deep breath just to find we have the same scars

I wonder, am I going to be
Ignorant and violent and distant one day too
Or will I find all the good parts of you in me and show you who you could have been
If you didn't fall into the madness your grandfather perpetuated and your mother continued.
I don't want to be like you
At least the you, you are the one you became
But I am in every way

Maybe one day on your death bed you will finally tell me you are proud
But I know your pride eats at you and seeks for the parts of me that are apart of you
So I will burn down everything you've created me to be with gasoline
And I will rebuild each part of me  with new parts of who I want to be.
Parts of me that will still feel the darkness
Parts of me who feel rage
Part of that little girl who still wants her father to be engaged enough to see her for who she is.

No matter who I become, I cannot hide that you will always be Ingrained into me.
One day you will find, you could have been who I have became all along.
And if I could go back in a time machine to change it for us
I would
To love you as a child
Just as they should
Just like you deserved
Just like I deserved.

You’ll ask how I am
And I’ll say that I’m fine
Then you’ll give that look
Like I’m being snide

If you knew how my anger
was the last to survive
how affection eludes me
as I’m boiling inside

If you peeked at the shadow
snaring my thoughts
and the vortex of voices
pushing sinister plots

If you felt how my stomach
refuses to eat
or heard my mind screaming
to race into the street

If you held my confusion
in the palm of your hand
you’d crumble to pieces
and ask how I stand

If you learned of the stats
in regard to my mind
you’d see that my ******
will likely be mine

So when you ask how I’m doing
And I say that I’m fine,
know I’m vaulting the bar
simply being alive

I should eat
a cake to celebrate my victories
over inherited Goliaths.
Instead my face is gaunt,
stoneless and lacking heroism,
while my mind starves for nutrients

I should eat.
Because this was my dream,
a house no one can enter
filled with unshared favorites.
I stare into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep

I should eat.
To stop the searing in my chest
the quaking of my hands
the static in my ears
as I stare into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep.

I should eat.
How long have I been here?
Shoulder bruised on linoleum,
cooling as I lie here
staring into the stove
yearning to climb in and sleep

You’re going to eat me someday, aren’t you?
You’re hovering when I wash my face
lingering behind the fridge door
crouching when my back is turned,
feeding my clothes to the dryer
You clash my thoughts against each other
until I barely know I’m awake

You’ll sink your teeth into my hip
while I sprint up the stairs.
You’ll snap my arm off
as I fumble with my keys
crush my ankle
as I leap for a drain pipe,
shatter my skull
while I’m clawing a riverbank

Everywhere I go
you’ll be there.
Every time I rest
you will take a bite.

You’re going to eat me someday, aren’t you?
and no one will be surprised

Tell me how we are to defeat
a ravenous constant maelstrom
when our only weapons
are prescribed
by a fighter who sees battle
but 45 minutes at at time

What good is armor
with no memory of war?
What can I do with a sword
sharpened only once a month?
Why do I take orders from you,
the most incompetent leader?

My fists are clenched but will not fly
because of the power you have over me
You could mislead me and I would die
but somehow I’m the liability

You’re in the deepening blackness
that chases the sunset to my window
and the dread creeping beneath my skin.
The Old Fear fizzes in my ears
with hypnotic need to leap from up high

The quiet is steeped in evil
that plays the creaking doorway
and the footsteps to my bed
on loop in this sleepless unease
through a megaphone long broken

The bright icy claw of something
invisible catches up to me,
freezing my eyes and halting my chest.
I’m a prison – a waking corpse
and you don’t even know you’re here

I am not apart of my body
And I'm not apart of my mind
These places aren't real and neither am I-
I find comfort in this feeling, oddly satisfied.  

I fade away forgetting the pain
Stuck in this haze
I can't seem to reciprocate a single conversation
Slipping away they think my fate is seldom at the devil's gate
But truly I am just dissociating away.
I can't seem to remember what it was they hated
But I no longer feel the weight of all that's been done to me
Spinning freely away from your gaze.

My memory is stuck. Someone took a key and locked it up and these painful thoughts seep through the bars causing me to feel ajar, I feel panicked I feel disgusted. The pain I thought I hid from is now being digested.

Piece by piece get it back in tiny parts, float away and forget the pain please protect my heart. I can't seem to remember what it was you've done to me, but I know in my bones, my body never felt like home, because it was you who had injected me and infected me, with your sick sticky specimen, locked up in your basement den, ruining my mind teaching me to fly.

My head is nearly leaking methanol disguise my self hide it all. I believe I'm a doctor I know I can prescribe it all myself. Self medicated nose full of Xanax lines i can't seem to get inside my head. Heart is bursting out my chest, lungs are full of cigarettes, God It was such a mess I loved it. The chaos he created, made me replicate it, a cycle of doom there's so many men in my room, who am I anymore?  

Front view right above myself just so I can watch my body rotting. This self destructive part of me is so **** exhausting. How come no one sees my cries how come no one saves me from these lies. Im feeling lonely. Each person came and took a awfully big piece of me I'm starting to fall apart so easily.

Sixteen years feels like too much.
When all you've felt is enough
The cold bitter wind just let this be the end of me, so maybe I can float away for real this once instead of in my mind
I can't make it this time.

The goddess in the wind, kissed me tenderly and told me it's time to win. I felt the warmth and I started to sing, that's when I turned 18 and you gave me a ring, we rebuild all the parts they broke together, and while I may still float away, my angel boy is there to catch me when the wind blows me too far away, slowly and tenderly wrapping my torn heart in his arms,
He saved me.

I break the surface  
As the water recedes,  
I'm no longer fighting,  
Washed up in the weeds.  

I search for the voice  
That guides my return,  
Breaking the sand  
Where the tide has turned.  

I crawl like the waves,  
Retreating, then strong—  
I stand on two feet,  
Though the journey is long.  

I walk for the hills,  
The sun escapes me,  
The night draws in,  
Moon lights the quay.  

I see you waiting  
On the pier alone,  
You never gave up,  
Guiding me home.  

The pain in my heart  
Washed out at sea—  
A burden released,  
As you comfort me.

By Darren Wall ©