I’m sorry if it’s strange, but I don’t feel right

And it’s taken me a while to figure out why.

Now it’s hit me, I know why I feel so undone.

I’m just not fighting anymore.

For as long as I remember, I’ve been fighting

Fight the world, stupid little girl,

That’s what I told myself.

Battle the asthma, the pneumonia, the allergies that keep you shut inside.

Watch your friends learn all those sports you can’t play,

See them make new friends, leave you behind.

Fight the pain inside, little darling,

Pray every day for a hopeless cause,

Watch your Daddy slowly waste away,

Fighting that monster they call cancer,

Watch it take him away too soon,

He wasn’t even 50,

When the final round ended,

And the fight was lost.

(At 12 years old I met Death, he never really left.)

Little girl, lost in the great big world,

Everybody’s leaving her,

No one sees her breaking down, fighting herself,

The bandages under her sleeves and pants,

The scars forming on her heart.

Nobody sees,

Of course they don’t, why would she let them?

("But I’ve never seen any scars on you."

"Why would I cut where you could see?")

Little Refugee,

Find your armor in the books, the words,

The stories you so adore,

Let your brush and pen be your weapon

Against the taunts and teasing,

The way they tell you you’re not good enough.

It’s time to grow up, 12 going on 34.

Don’t tell Mama, her little girl ain’t alright,

Smile like everything’s so fine, don’t you dare cry.

Carry that head high. (Or at least try to.)

Fight. Fight it every day. Fight it every night.

Don’t you just want to die?

(Guess what I did?

I gave up on God, that’s what I did.

F*ck the prayers that didn’t work,

Screw the people who tried to get me in church,

Don’t you see that I don’t belong there?

Honey, I’ve already paid for my ticket straight to hell.

I gave up on everything I thought was right,

What’s the point in living when all I see is liars,

Fakes and idiots trying to climb that goddamn social ladder?

Oh, kids will be kids they say,

Bullying isn’t a big problem, that’s what they think.

She’s fine, when they call her a freak every day,

Tell her "Daddy died to get away from YOU!" )

Yet somehow she makes it through,

Fights the nightmares and the constant rage,

She throws away the pills, the knives,

The blades, the rum and the blackouts.

She can’t forget, can’t make it change.

Live with it; try to carry on with this hatred of yourself.

Years down the road,

By some strange chance,

In a sophomore Lit class,

You find someone who could love you,

Who in time might know you better than you know yourself,

(Who knew that was possible, when I don’t even love myself?)

Try to be happy for the first time in such a long, long time.

…but what now?

How does happiness work when there’s nothing fake about it?

How do I write without the pain?

I don’t understand anymore now than I did then,

Don’t know how to be anything other than a soldier,

A Fighter.

- j.b. / jay