Life as a Poet

Barely Keeping My Head Up

Watch me walk through the crowded halls.

Look at me keeping my head up when I am desperately tired.

Praise me when you seeing me arriving on time.

Smile at me when I smile at you through my music I blast.

Read my expressions like a book.

Pushing myself to be better than is possible of me.

Maybe learning another language can give me words unspoken.

Going about my whole life like an orphan.

Darkness only drawing closer with your final breath.

Blackness like a second skin.

A skin I would rather have than my own.

Tan and dirty when all I was raised around was white.

What is different than me than those you hate.

Nothing.

The ocean is the only thing I compare myself too.

Always changing.

A disaster waiting to happen.

And me only being dragged down further.

Weighted by everything that prohibits me from a normal life.

The blackness that had become a second skin.

A weight similar to a star.

Barely keeping my head above the rising tide of the ocean I know as life.

See in my eyes the pain I feel.

See the smile I wear every day is not of happiness.

Look in my eyes and see the wars being fought on the inside.

Look at me deeply and see that,

I'm barely breathing.