I always loved a good mystery.
I just never realized how much I was one.
Do they even know who’s at home right now?
Do they know why that's a problem?
I always loved Sherlock Holmes.
But not even he could figure me out.

Are you a talker?
Or a listener.
I’ve always been both.
But I don't talk much at home.
I don’t talk much about it.
But I always sit there.
And listen.
While everybody serves their secrets.
Pouring them.
Spooning them
on to a platter.
I listen.
I might be breaking inside.
On my fourth sleepless night.
But that doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter?

I don’t know how to talk anymore.
About things that make me seen.
It comforts people.
To think they know me.
When really.
They don’t know anything.
I’m just a stranger.
Who collects their pain.
You talk to me and I lift that weight.
Tell me.
Do you feel lighter when you walk away?
Yeah.
Told you so.

So here I am.
Because I have nobody to turn to.
At the end of the day.
Except for you.
Who I love far more than friendships allow.
But not quite as a lover.
Who sees me as more than just a helpful tool.
Who understands that I too,
Suffer.
You just get it.
I just get you.
I don’t know..
But maybe you feel it too.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
This is love.

You put me
“In my place.”
But really.
You misplaced me.
You seem to forget who I am
And where on your shelf I should go.

I used to belong to your collection of important things.
But you put me on the bottom in a box titled “Miscellaneous”
I’m not used to being down here.
It’s a little degrading.
Not as bright.

You never take these things out.
I’m not sure why you keep them, really.
But you know I don’t complain.
I don’t tell you to fix me every time you’ve dropped me.
And let me tell you.
It was a pretty high shelf to fall from.
I don’t have to tell you not to worry.
You don’t care enough to anyway.

I wonder if you got tired of me.
Maybe you grew bored.
Couldn’t teach me new tricks.
I didn’t have anything more to give.
My battery died.
My lights went out.
My voice button doesn’t work anymore.
Not that you listened when it did.
But you kind of just let me die.

And then told me it wasn’t your fault.

Except…

You never replaced my batteries.

Pages
Upon pages.
I write,
I scream.
I bleed.
Upon pages.
Where I drown out my cries.
In various fonts.
Setting the world I so desperately despise
Ablaze.
In the places that killed me to breathe.
You lived.
You found comfort.
Solace.
You found peace
Where I found pain.
I do not hate you for the love you lack.
But you do not know what it is like.
To watch you be without it.
It is the emptiness that speaks volumes.
It is the “something”.
That I long for.
Amidst the nothingness you provide.
Among the sea of chaos.
I wish to see you drown.
Maybe then.
You would have a drink to offer.
On your diet
I have starved
You have forbidden all things essential.
Where
Hope
Used to take the edge off of the pain.
The tears I rationed.
all have dried up like the well that held your capacity to care.
Simply put ,
I have lost all of the weight you placed upon my shoulders.


Because I finally took a bite of something sweet.

I try to let you in.
But
You have a habit of letting me down.
I try.
Over
And over.
And it’s never enough.
I tell myself
“Tomorrow will be different.”
And every day
I wake up defeated.
Why?
Because you never change.
And you expect me to be like you.

I’ve been a marionette on your strings,
Acting like your perfect little girl.
But I’m not little anymore.
No.
I’m just tired.
Tired of mothering your kids.
Tired of being the punching bag for problems that never concerned me.
Tired of being nobody in your eyes until you need me.
Tired of being needed.
I just want to be.
Enough.
I want who I am.
To be enough for you.
The way it is for me.
I want to do nothing,
And still be told “I love you.”
I don’t want my worth to be measured by the amount that I give.
Otherwise I'd be worthless.
Because I have nothing left.
Why?
I gave it all to you.

And nobody would ever see it.
What goes on in our walls.
But I walk down the halls,
At school.
Where nobody suspects.
Because it’s me, Lil.
I’m chill and friendly and non confrontational.
I’ve got a great fam..
Right?

Yeah.
Right.

I hear you in my head.
While you text me all hours of the day.
Informing me of just how much I disappoint you.
You beautifully serenade those paragraphs.
But conveniently
you never seem to pick up when I call.
I didn’t know parenting was optional when you had kids.

I wish you thought having kids was an option.

Maybe you wouldn’t have had them.

I’m glad that you’re trying your best.
But that means nothing to me.
When your best doesn’t meet minimum standards.
My expectations are not high.
All I ask is that your knees scrape the basic levels of care.
That.
Is all I ask.
I don’t ask you to take me places.
Or buy me things.
Or drive me.
Or pick me up.
Because the amount of times I used to wait.
Hours after my friends were picked up.
And the teachers would offer to drive me home.
But I just sat there on the pavement,
not knowing which house I was going to end up in for the night.
Because somebody's mother forgot about them.
Why would I ask anymore?
Why would I hold on to false hope?
To make you feel better?
Maybe you don’t feel sorry.
Because you're not the one paying the price.
Price of what? You ask.


Of not being loved.

I am not a person.
Not enough space
is filled by my presence.
To be considered
There.
Nobody bothers to say hello,
Or even
glance in my direction.
I am simply too little of nothing.
To be anything.
Important,
Or unique.
I was a madman's invention.
Built obsolete.
Prepared to sit on shelves
For years to come.
Society has made themselves clear.
Even if I tried my best.
It would never be enough.
I
would.
never.
be.
Enough.

You took everything away.
Burned down our homes,
Gunned down our children,
And built palaces over the dead bodies.
Do you smell it?
I smelled it once.
It was home.
Home to the famous olive trees.
That symbolized peace
And prosperity.
The most eye-catching landscapes,
The beauty in the ancient buildings
That
for so long.
Stood strong.
These.
Were the ones driven away from this land.
We.
Were the ones driven away.
Forced to mourn the day they demolished our nation.
The day they tried to demolish our souls.
The aroma of oud and kanafeh.
Can you smell it?
“I don’t smell it.”
Rubble and dust suffocate the air.
Suffocate our lungs.
Pain.
Despair.
We will not be forgotten.
We did not die in vain.
Oh,
My love.
One day,
I too will gaze upon the grace of that land.
My feet will tread the ancient streets.
And one day.
We will smell it again.
Love.
Because.
From the river to the sea.
One day.
Palestine will be free.

This life,
This
Wonderful.
Beautiful
Struggle.
To live.
And to breathe.
And
To love.
This.
Is life.
Mistakes.
Cracks.
Breaks.
Happen.
But life.
It goes on.
And on,
our bodies.
We wear our past,
Like
Paint plastered on the ceilings.
Too old and too hard to peel off.
Viridity
The days of true gold.
Where everything simply meant nothing.
Serendipity.
Those years were indelible.
How I miss those days.
Before I met you.
Before
I felt the agony of your absence.
Before
I learned the true meaning of philocaly.
That.
Was all
Before.
I knew from the beginning,
That when I found you,
I was only meant to lose you.
I learned to love you so that I could miss you.
You drank my poison,
And I drank yours.
I was icarus,
And you were the sun
I was a writer.
Who shed no tears.
But I bled on the pages for you.
Time
And time again.
And
I would do it.
Time.
And time.
Again.
To the ends of the earth.
I would go.
For you.
When our bodies meet the ground.
When we die.
Let us become part of the sky.
So that every time that it rains.
You.
Me.
We.
Are everywhere.
We couldn’t be when we were alive.
The places.
I would have taken you to.
The nights I would have spent with you.
Oh,
To be loved the way you love.
To find you in every melody.
To share the same moon.
Under the sky of stars I would have robbed for you.
This life,
This
Wonderful.
Beautiful
Struggle.
To live.
And to breathe.
And
To love.

This.

Is life.