When I was a kid

I was shy/

I only made myself acquainted with the tools in the shed instead of friends

Because in the end

I would trade homework for friendship

in repayment with a nail to the heart with “who are you again?”/

 

I was what you would call a timid outline/

My sidewalk chalk that was often times scuffed or washed away

is what it felt like everyday in that classroom/

Faded/

 

One after the other, each word that has spread

was like a slash through paper/

A tally score that was always growing deeper into the skin/

The last one sharper than the last insult before/

Set beside me as a claymore of heinous idioms

with fat….ugly….useless…...spaz/

Only standing up to breath out

 

I know/

 

Words soon became bullet wounds, every shot

laced with acid as it burned through my head/

Messages left in black smudges/

Yet my pain was so numb that my sticks and stones 

were beyond on the word of broken/ 

 

They would never get enough/

No matter how much they hated me they could

never matched the degree of rapid gunfire of my own self hate/

So in the end I would always win with my own blood soaked flags/

 

To be the new subject was all we ever wanted as kids/

To be heard, to be listen to/

As we exclude the latest title in the middle of the road of casting shadows/

We all follow the line to be kings of the hill/ 

 

Titles that always lost their fame but never their label/

Insecurities that spoke vulnerability for the lions feed to start/

Every word clicked from the iron casts as they sat at their table/

Wielded pain would add to the record that repeatedly was broken/ 

Restless from the high-strung silence/

 

All my waking minutes was a ticking time bomb/

Every smile is a crack at faulty as behind it is a shattered vase/

Every truth of “I love you” a counterfeit lie that will be swept aside

along with the countless oceans I have wept in the darkness of my room

pleading “why don’t I love me?”/

 

Every time I would try to drown in it’s waves

I never could do it/

I wasn't afraid, it was just my lungs that breathed hope thinking it would end soon

so I listened/

 

Tell me true vexing, woe/

Life is an understatement of a living hell/

It is more of a limbo/

Nonexistent, just aimlessly walking roads that lead in no particular direction

as every arrow a pointing finger of judgement/

As I walk along the soaked pavement/

 

As I grew I became heart harden unto others/

Offering a fake smile that I played so well/

I’d hurt myself before others could so

I wouldn’t have to cry on someone’s shoulder/

 

As I got older, everything was more clear, more restricted/

The canniness hallways, the rules was all a chain to my scarred heart and reddened wrists

Seeing the looks of people wanting desperate taste of a lustful kiss with a dash of venom/

I looked down I still see smaller me, a lot more hopeful but broken all the way through/

 

It’s sad really no/ pitiful/

That we soothe ourselves to a drunken sleep with a drink/

Harm ourselves with burns and cuts of the envy we all bleed/

The constant look of hatred in our curves, hands, eyes, trying to

disguise it all under a hoodie or a shirt since you think your body has no money value to it’s worth/

 

The way we look at ourselves now and damage every fiber of our being/

But you're not seeing you’re cutting away at the little child behind the mirror/

You see nothing but your empty face when really you should look a little more clearer

it’s more than you give credit to/

 

Our inner kid/

Do you remember your own inner child?! Because I do/

Because they're still there but they are watching the person they turned into/

They are still there yet silenced with the words in your head/

 

Every moment they are walking besides you just waiting/

Waiting for the chance to be free and play, not looking forward to the next payday but the next

storm of rain, watching the puddles go untouched/

Yet we keep our kids on a collar close at hand so we don't have to be exposed to even more

pain and suffering/

 

What happened to the smile that graced your face she says/

How come you never remember what to say but can always remember to cry/

You said we are going to the park but you tell me you don’t have the time/ 

Yet all the time is silence and paperwork/

 

Over the years the child we learned to muzzle shut

now have scars where the metal cut in/

Their hands and wrists marked from the countless apologies of regret/

The collar that made an inner lions chords weaker each century/

 

We have a past pain we can’t ignore/

You shouldn’t be so willing to slam it on the kid before you/

We say we feel lost on the road of remembrance

that you can’t find the inner happiness of a once whole smile/

But more of a bandaged pile of a heart that was bent long ago/

 

Once again they are still there/ Your child/

They are sitting on your lap some weeping and some still/

Mine beside me and her shackles I see that have drastically grown/

The labels that I have put on her and the marks of bitterness

for that's all she has seen and known/

 

Yet/ I still love her with the way she is formed/

My pain has not always been her normality/

I may be aging in responsibilities/ 

My time getting shorter and as I go down the line past the hill, past the hallways, and sidewalks/

Looking around for the suits and cameras called adulthood/

Acting out of line will get you in trouble, so no playgrounds today/

We are constantly hiding “them” under the grid, hiding our freedom that society tries to rid/

But you can't change me/

 

 because I'm still a kid/