i was your mistake.
i was the combination of all your failures
i took the brunt of everything you faced
i faced the darkness when you turned away.
i stared your demons right in their eyes
and told them,
bite me.
i suffered at the expense of your bad day
i was created and built from cheaters and heartaches
high school lovers and middle school crushes
i was made from already-crumbling walls and rose bushes
made from the bite makes of foxes that decorate my ankles
made from the ash this home burned down in
no, this family.
i'm made from ruins
yet i am still standing
and that is more
than my parents could ever say.
i choked on blood while you suffocated on air
i died while you bled out
i was bleeding yet the knife was in you
you ignored the blood and let it pour
ignore the bruises ignore the skin
pale skin, soft fingers
trailing over your spine
nails dig into your skin and rip it out
you're spineless
i crawled out from beneath the rubble of that home
my hand shot up from beneath the dirt
you buried me alive
that was your mistake.
you let me live.
and so i stand here today on this stage
above all of you to sing this song with pride—
no. those aren't my words, their yours.
and so with a tornado in my heart and stars at my feet
here i am
despite the shit you handed me
again and again and again and again
i survived.
i am still standing
i am still breathing
and that is more than my parents could ever say.
i am the product of their hurt
i am the product of their problems they could never solve
i am the product of anguish and screams
i am the product
of red and blue.
i am the product of volcanoes and tsunamis
i am a hurricane
and i will wreck this town to the ground
-things we lost in the fire
i am greater than you will ever be
i am not you
never
watch with jealously
as my voice is freer
than you could ever wish to be.
watch me
watch the flames consume my body
and not burn
i am not you
i am better
i am not you
i will be better
than what you raised me as
i am not you
i am shards
and i will pick them up and slit my own throat
and turn that blood into poetry
instead of slinging it into people's eyes
