don't create your own storm and get upset when it rains
we were freaks. lobster claw boys and bearded ladies: oddities. juggling depression and loneliness, playing solitaire, spin the bottle, trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal. but at night while the others slept we kept walking the tightrope. it was practice. and yes, some of us fell. but I want to tell them that all of this shit is just debris, leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought we used to be. and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself? get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little longer. because there’s something inside you that made you keep trying, despite everyone who told you to quit.
you built a cast around your broken heart and signed it yourself, you signed it, “they were wrong.” because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a clique, maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything. maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth to show and tell but never told because how can you hold your ground if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it? you have to believe that they were wrong. they have to be wrong.
why else would we still be here? we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog, because we see ourselves in them. we stem from a root planted in the belief that we are not what we were called, we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway. and if in some way we are..don’t worry. we only got out to walk and get gas. we are graduating members from the class of ‘fuck off we made it’. not the faded echoes of voices crying out: names will never hurt me. of course they did. but our lives will only ever always continue to be a balancing act that has less to do with pain and more to do with beauty.
