Small town America
Enemy n' friend
There's plenty I don't get.

People judge what isn't clear
It'd be nice not to care
It's hard to do when different is odd.

Originality is mocked 'n scorned by
folks who claim to know what's best.

Christianity's just some gimmick
When your heart ain't really in it
But I'm a sinner too I cannot judge.

Don't speak openly about taboo
Subjects lest wrath be invoked.
Problem is walls won't crumble till
They're spoke.

Open mind 'n willingness to compromise
Would be nice
Though I know it will not be.

Small town America
Home of conformity

Nonconformists be shunned
Get yourself set right or we'll send
You on the run.

Small town America
There's traits I like about you

Country roads
Peaceful breeze
Leaves upon tall trees.

Rubbing me wrong is how people treat
One another
Could be they think its normal
to have such kinds of morals.

Don't perceive this as an attack
I'm proud of my roots

It just gets me down
That folks around can be so
Mean.

Small town America
Don’t talk about differences
Everyone has to be identical to the next.

Stuff you leave behind picket fences
To be buried
Left unsaid
In small towns.

I spent all my time trying to memorize his favorite things that I forgot mine.
The only problem with that is that when it ended, I was left to re-learn what I had once loved.

i wear more black
Now,
than i did
at my first funeral.
Who died?



Me?

at age 10,
my mother pointed
At the small birth mark
On my left knee and said,
"Someone's going to love
You for that one day."

At age 16,
I told her that a boy,
One far away,
Told me I was unloveable.
"He couldn't be more wrong,"
She promised.

At age 19,
She picked up my prescription,
And cried,
"I don't want you
To get your heart broken,
Mary." She sobbed.

The empty encouragements mean nothing,
When a daughter has decided
That the need to be tragically beautiful,
Is more important than the need
To be exceptionally loved.

i imagine that you're dead. i imagine that you're laying in a ditch, rotting. it's just easier that way. it's easier for me to believe you've died than to face the harsh reality that you're never coming back. you're gone. if i was honest with myself, i'd stop imagining and notice the new people in your life. how you tense up when i see you because now i write poetry and drink tea and hate myself. we used to do that together, hate ourselves. we used to fit, nail and hammer. at one point, you couldn't push me down further so you left. you became a ***** driver, ******* me over, ******* others over, until there's nothing i can do to help. i don't tell my therapist this. how i've stopped becoming a nail and become someone different. reading poems that don't rhyme anymore because they fit  too well together. i've become a *****. i keep other people together while they ***** me over. i look for broke people and fix them before i fix myself because i'll probably always be like this, this tool for people to use until i stop working or break, but at least they're a little more together than before they met me. i wish i could be honest and tell myself you aren't ever going to change, and blame me for leaving. I wish I could, but i can't.

""It's weird, you know. Meeting all the requirements for living things, but not feeling like it. You tell yourself just breathe, breathe in an out, in and out, until you can do it without reminding yourself. I find it amazing. What makes us human? Genetically, trillions of things, but what makes us separate from all these 'wild animals'? Compassion? Compromise? I haven't seen that in years. At least not in genuine fashion. Those all come at a cost. Everyone wants something in return for it. I think that's what fuels my fire, knowing everything comes at a price."
"Love comes at no cost" she'd say.
"Love comes at the highest cost: there is expected love in return. There, you are expected to keep living, breathing. They want you around, even if you don't want to be there yourself. That's the cost of living and love. Doing more than just existing in this world, even if it's just for others sake.""