Why does all art come from pain?
The creations of every tortured artist
Echo in our collective memory as we dream of being among the great.
So why is every legend a lost soul,
Drifting in the residual waves of turmoil from some monsoon in their childhood?
They are broken.
They were a crystal glass of purity,
But now they leak brilliance
Through the spider-web cracks in their veneer
And I fear
That I linger in the shadows of their epic tragedies.
I am not the only one who wonders,
If I was hurting that bad, would I be something too?

Why was I, the privileged boy with a loving mother and father
Chosen as the sole eyewitness,
The narrator of the perpetual miniature tragedies around me,
The oh-so-lucky boy to
Listen and smile and nod
And listen and smile and nod
And listen and smile
And repeat
The tired learned mantra,
“It is all going to be
O-K-A-Y,”
Why
Do I feel guilt
When listening to every passionate profession of past and present pain,
As if I am unworthy to feel my own emotions
As if I have no right to say “I understand,”
No right
To even sympathize
With ever-tearful eyes,
Because I don’t know how it feels to be
Broken.

Why is tragedy romanticized?
Every weepy and tearful confession of who-I-was or what-I-did encapsulated and glorified by a culture of underdogs,
Because we all want to be broken,
Join the crew,
Your pain is so beautiful,
Mine is too,
We are drunk on tears
And high on taboo
And none of us realize
We perpetuate
By creating
The media
Aiding
This glorification,
Hating
Ourselves,
Halfway because everyone else is doing it,
And halfway because we’re sick of being invisible.
So how dare you say
You are proud of the way
That you look,
When every book
Being devoured by gasoline flames of teenage angst
Is about two broken souls finding each other and completing,
I’m reading this shit
That we’re feeding
Our hungry hearts,
And I think,
Is this it?
Am I nothing more than a half of a human
Waiting for bits
Of my heart to be colored-by-number?
And I wonder,
Can we keep this up?

If we are meant to be anything more than the victims of our own life story,
We have to stop making excuses and start living,
And allow ourselves to be
Un
Broken.