lemonade

pitched black skies and yellow sodium lamps
we found a bench in the middle of muddy swamps
i told you how perpetually my muscles are on cramps
how unsteady i try to walk in well-lighted ramps

"you make a lemonade when life gives you lemons,
a little sugar to shoo away all your mighty demons
some water to drown them, dilute all the mayhem,"
you told as if it was just laying eggs and i happen to be mother hen

you see, i have been here for eighteen years
life challenged me and instead i grew towers of fears
i learned to dig deep and grow pools of tears
oh honey, if you only knew how much rust is in my gears

they said my skin was too brown, that i always have this frown
so i read and i spoke and took home a gold medal and the crown
they said my bones are needle-thin, that my face belongs in the bin
so i ran to books and the internet, now their stupidity just gives me a grin

no one ever actually liked to look at my blurry eyes
no one ever actually liked to check out my big thighs
you see, the unconventional beauty that my relatives say is just too unconventional
that even the memos about being pretty were checked and found me too unusual

and of course, why should we all forget
the parents who brought, raised me and yet
only looked at the gold and the crown and the sun-kissed brown
but not those pills, neither the slits nor the scars under the gown

“you do this, you do that, you follow me or end up flat
do you want to go back to rice fields and sort good rice on a mat?
do you want to settle on salt and rice as you stare on a wall crack?
or do you want to change fate and race colours in a different map?”

i was trained to wake up and bring out a fancy dress
was forged to chase the sun and leave everyone impressed
was molded to pick a book and read and speak, be relentless
now curls in my brain are tangled and my heart is restless

you see, i have been here for eighteen years
life is too bitter so i learned to gulp towers of beers
i learned that i am always out of serotonin and this interferes
oh darling, if you only know how i tried to block this with peers

i have been here for eighteen years
life threw lemons and my wound instantly sears
i learned to make lemonades just how everybody asked me to
but the sugar ran out when it was not supposed to
and the pool i have inside is just salt and nothing more
all in repetition, everything is suddenly a bore

so yes, i make lemonades just as the world suggested
but every time i do they just grow more acidulated
and the sweetness you promised i think is ridiculous
positive that it is a joke when my life happens to be miraculous