The Nature of Things

It’s not my fault I can’t sleep at night

That every day is a fight to find a reason to be alive

And you’re not right when you say I was born this way, because I wasn’t

And it doesn’t matter how many times you tell me I can fly

Because all I see is another way to die: falling when my wings fail me.

You see, the behaviorists had it right when they said we were born neutral

We were the sun’s pupils, and his light gave us hope

And maybe you were moved to a slope in the desert, spending too much time in the light

But I was planted in the dark of a nightmare

I watched my brother murder everyone in my family

Including me.

And yes it was a dream, but that doesn’t make it any less of a memory.

Being afraid in every way does some things you can’t see, but I feel them.

Maybe I was born to stem into a rose, but the gardener said,

“Not today.”

I thought the easiest way to escape things was to close my eyes

To throw on another disguise and avoid the lies I’d have to tell

While inside I was yelling at myself, wishing something would end this miserable hell

That we call life

But above all, avoiding the world was the game I played

It feels like a lame excuse when I say “I’m depressed”, so I don’t

And you won’t know I want to die every day when you see me smile

Or how every inch seems a mile when I fight for my life each morning like a murder trial.

But once in a while I get up and find courage to face the world

And maybe this courage comes from a shirt with a lion on the front

But sailors used Orion to find their way, so why can’t I use a shirt

To shrug off the dirty looks of people who don’t understand me?

What I’ve discovered is this: the difference in the seed isn’t what makes

My life different than yours

Because we all share the human seed

The reason we bleed differently from one another is because we were planted

In different gardens when we were discovered.