When everything gets too 

much, I take a step back. 

I choose to be something 

different- someone new. 

My life has been a constant 

game of make pretend- 

I have been going through 

the years with a blank 

“Hello, my name is-“ sticker- 

I fill in my name tag with 

whoever I need to be. 

I am both the chameleon 

and the rock- I am both 

the thing that constantly 

changes and the one 

person that will stay the same. 

I mold the world around me 

into whatever I want it to be. 

This is not my weakness 

but it is my strength- 

my power over everything else.  

 

If someone new enters 

the room, if the party lasts 

too long, if the people I 

came with are no longer the 

people I know- I can tap out. 

I can step into a new dimension, 

I can watch the walls bend 

and the sky dip- I can turn 

the ground into a silk sheet- 

and make it ripple under my 

shifting weight. I send the 

foundations of reality into a 

disorienting tailspin. I do not 

have a problem with being here- 

Here has a problem being with me.  

What is the point in fighting 

for something that does not 

want you? If existing in this 

world does not work for me, 

I will stop trying to work for it. 

 

Is that okay? 

Is it okay to dream 

away all of the days- 

to wake up only when 

I feel like reality is better 

than what my imagination 

can come up with? 

I feel like I have experienced 

so much while being trapped 

within my cranial cavity- 

and I have nothing to show for it. 

I spent days as a child 

locked away in my mind, 

making my own escapes 

from what I didn’t like. 

Instead of living through 

the fights that I could hear 

going on downstairs, 

I made up my own arguments 

with my fictional friends. 

I had falsified battles and 

many invisible scars- 

did I act out scenes with fatal 

wounds as a way to cry out for help? 

When did dying with someone 

by my side become a fantasy? 

 

I blink away the lies and 

scripts, and I am in shock. 

Everything has passed by me, 

and I have not noticed it at all. 

I am 7 going on 17- when 

did time stop being paused? 

Did I really sleep away 

all of those years? 

The role I built for myself 

is getting cramped- I can not 

be a child actor in an adult body. 

What do I do with all of 

this life inside of my head? 

It wants to get out- 

it wants to see the world 

and travel abroad, but the 

most exotic place I have ever 

been is a step out my front door. 

 

I do not want to get trapped 

inside of my head again- 

I am tired of trying to convince 

myself I am something I am not. 

They tell me this is just 

a coping mechanism- 

what is the point of coping if it 

causes you to suffer even more? 

I traumatize myself for fun- 

I dig graves in my spare time. 

It is so exhausting, 

bottling up lives in your 

heart that are not your own. 

I want to breathe actual fresh 

air again- I want to be me again. 

Do I even remember what I am? 

Who I was? Did I ever get a 

chance to build myself up, 

or was I born with no identify? 

 

My name tag is still blank, so 

just call me whatever you want. 

It is difficult to label an empty box- 

how do you name something if 

you are not sure it even exists?