I close my eyes and count to ten, hoping the words outside my bedroom door won't assume I can't see, or hear them

'Cause when home has no love to give, and school takes more of myself that what it gives

My world becomes a cave in which words echo

and

echo

and echo.

Where is the key

Where are the words of love and everything else that's supposed to describe "family"

Where is the courage to stop this once and for all?

I was at school the other day, thinking about the Apple Grove projects

How better tools were needed for better infrastructure

How better clothes were better than paying off your indentures

How safety nets came in the form of reaction thanks to inaction.

The textbooks say "There's a lack of local funding"

Backing deaf ears and blind eyes

The comic books say "People need to step up"

When the only way is down

And the teenfic novels say

"Be yourself"

--I don't see the successful step out of the mirrors, though.

The books have lied to me.

What have been my shields from reality, what was the only hotline open 24/7 for my kind of broken

What were my 4 walls of fantasized happiness

It's all gone.

So I'll build my own walls

My own world

My own words

To keep me company even when I may be in the wrong because

Excuse me for chasing my dreams

Beyond the cliff

Beyond the lock that said

"Future you will be a mess"

Beyond the place where they buried me six feet under and

As an answer, as my show of defiance

There stood my bedroom door

An entrance to the useless pity bridge under which my tears flowed.

A misfit, they'll call me

For not being loved by love, but

What is love when the apple falls and misses the tree

By 2 PhDs of family chemistry

And an A+

Unchallenged

Equates to 100% love lost

Would you call that love?

Or is it something else that's the monster behind this door?

Believe me

When I say that I'm not afraid of the dark

But what keeps me up at night

Are the stars that fade away with the words

"Your light is destined to be blinding forever."

-the child

Someday I'll post a rewrite for this topic...someday. Again though, this poem came from my heart so I really didn't want to edit it too heavily in fear I'll lose what I captured while writing this.