Do you remember those summer nights

The ones when it wasn’t too hot or chilly out

The ones when the air was fresh

And the skies were a beautiful deep blue

Those summer nights when you were an only child

And your parents would take you to Hayte Park

You’d all walk there because it wasn’t that far from the house anyway

Do you remember when you were the only kid there on those nights

And the park was so huge back then

And the world was so huge back then

And on those nights, you owned the park

It was your park, it was your world

You owned the world, it was all yours

You were young back then

And life was much simpler back then

But you knew that the world was yours

You knew you were destined for greatness in life,

In this world

You were young but you were aware

Aware of your own talent, your power

Your voice, and all of its booming glory

You knew in time, you’d make your mark on this planet

Flashing forward

You’re a slight bit older than what you were

And the parks aren’t so big anymore

And parks don’t make up your world anymore

And the world itself, isn’t so big anymore

And you aren’t on top of it all anymore

But you’ve still got your sass

It’s stronger than ever now

As it flows through your veins

In your body

In the way you walk,

In the way you talk,

In the way you carry it all on your shoulders

With your head still held high

You still know your worth

And you’ve got morals now

You told yourself you won’t grow up to be someone’s maid

You told yourself you won’t grow up to be someone’s toy

You said

You won’t be bossed around because you’ll be the boss - someday

Flashing forward again

Somehow, on your ways of becoming the boss,

You lost your voice to all of those who wanted to take it from you

You lost your morals

You lost track of your target - what you were aiming at

You lost yourself

And that was the biggest loss of them all

When you lost yourself

You said you wouldn’t be anyone’s toy

Yet, here you are

Always being played by someone

And you allow yourself to get played

To be played

All the time

You said you wouldn’t allow yourself to end up being anyone’s maid

Remember

But look at you now, sweeping those tears away

Look at you - sweeping yourself away for the room to be occupied

By someone else

Look at you - cleaning up after everyone

Look at you cleaning

Up from the messes that aren’t even yours

Do you know who you are anymore

Do you remember who you were

Now - a - days,

You sell yourself short for his approval of you

For his applause

For his love

But -

You never held his heart in your hands

Because he never had a heart -

So you never got his love

And you still have not gotten his love

But you keep telling yourself he’ll come around

And the only time he wants to be around is when

You make yourself small enough for him to be larger than he actually is

You wait on him to care

And, he does

Just not much

Just not enough for it to show

But you didn’t ask for him to buy you the world

Only to be someone worth your time

Only to be someone you would waste time for

Someone you’d waste time with

Because being with him, time is endless

So you can waste all the time you want

And even after you’ve done that,

You’ll find yourself still waiting

To hold his heart in your hands

And they say time is patience

But haven’t you been patient long enough

And you’re still waiting

For the moment he decides

He will see you

Not just look through you

The moment he won’t look past you

But to you

And in his eyes, he’ll have all the world’s love for you

All the love you should have had for yourself

In his eyes, in the moment he will see you,

You will have already left

You will have already faded

Giving him every last bit of you until

There isn’t any bit of you left to give him

You will have cried yourself rainstorms

And his umbrella will have finally broken

And he will finally be drenched

In all the tears filled from the pain in your eyes

He will finally feel that pain

But again, it’ll be too late

And you’ll have moved on

Just to go through that experience

Over and over again

With a new person each time

Until you can’t take it any longer

And then you shatter

As if you weren’t already broken

And you try your hardest to remember the times you

Were once complete

Once whole

And you remember those nights

Those summer nights your parents took you to Hayte Park

And the park was your world on those nights

And the world was a big park on those nights

And you like to remember them as the good - ol’ -

Days

You like to forget that on those nights you were still small

You had made yourself small

Smaller

So the world could feel much larger

But don’t you remember those nights

When it was just you and your father at the park

Oops,

I meant just you at the park

And the shadow of a man who was supposed to be

Is supposed to be

Your father

Supposed to be your protector

It was the shadow of a man who was barely a man

And it was you - just a child

Wanting to be loved

You never got that love, I’m sorry

He was supposed to be the  first male to love you

But he couldn’t even love himself right

So knowing you are his child, how could he

Love you

He gave his love to the things that brought him closer to death by the

Day

He wanted to die, maybe

It seems that way when you look back on those nights

You were stuck raising yourself, caring for yourself

On the nights you taught yourself

To lead - not follow

Unless you want to drown in your sorrow

Like the way your father drowned in his sorrow

And is still drowning

The way he is being swallowed by cigarettes and alcohol

Constantly

And you,

You became sassy

To avoid being sad

You gave yourself orders so you wouldn’t be misguided

But your heart lead you to your lover

The lover that never loved

You

And you say it’s okay

Because you’ve felt this pain before

The pain of not being loved

So you always tell your lover you have enough love for the both of you

To share

Even though you never have enough love for yourself

You cry until your eyes go from rainforests

To deserts

And all the life in you dies

And all your pain numbs until you feel nothing at all

And that is how you teach yourself to move on

You get over everything by becoming nothing

Leaving nothing to remember

And that is how you forgot yourself

That is how you lost yourself

You were

Once a person

Now

You are only the remains of the person you used to be

You set yourself on fire

And the wind carried your ashes

Until it couldn’t bare you anymore

Or bare your burdens anymore

You let the world swallow you whole

Until you became nothing but bones left

And you told yourself

This is what love feels like

And that is how you loved yourself

That is how you cared for yourself

That’s how you still care for yourself

It’s how you still love yourself

It is how you move on

It is how you become your own

Boss

You knew you were destined for greatness

 

~Taureyahna