You taught me that everyone that wasn't a christian was going to hell.
You taught me that we were the prime example of a good christian family, even though I had bruises on my skin.
You taught me that girls should wear makeup and do their hair and wear pretty dresses, and are good for nothing except being a housewife,
you taught me that my talents should be used only enough to get money so I can live in a big house with kids and be a good wife.
You taught me that homosexuals should be strung up and gutted for being sick and diseased sinners.
You taught me that boys who don't dress like men are homosexual ***** nasty sinners.
You taught me that I wasn't good for anything
You told me that you wished you could raise me all over again, so maybe I wouldn't be such a disappointing sinner.
You told me I couldn't play with boy toys, because that's a sin,
You told me I could only wear girl colors.
You told me to only read books about good girls who do good things and not books on adventure and crime.
You told me I was ugly.
You told me I was fat.
You told me I could be somebody someday, but it wouldn't be so because I was ugly and fat and stupid and good for nothing, so I better stop dreaming.
You called me a liar when I said my father hit me.
Even when you pulled him off me as I breathed what would have been my last breath.
You didn't take me to the doctor when I laid in my room screaming in pain for an unknown reason,
You called me a ***** and a ****
and that my friends are disgusting.
You claimed I had no free will and that everything I did, was me just trying to be like all my nasty sinning homosexual friends.
You said all I did on the computer is watch ****. I was a kid.
You said my pains and sorrows and feelings and thoughts and ambitions were me just being dramatic.
You never called the police
or divorced him sooner,
you just got another job and left me alone with him all day.
You called me a liar no matter what I said.
You blamed me for your woes and your weight.
You prayed and begged and cried in front of me,
trying to understand where you went wrong and why I was such a sinner. I was a kid.
You didn't raise me.
When I twisted my ankle on a field trip, it was another parent who iced my ankle.
You didn't pick me up from the school play at 10pm,
I waited and waited- it was another parent who came back to check on me, and took me home.
When I woke up with ****** knuckles and ****** walls, you didn't care that I had been punching the walls in my sleep you didn't do anything to help.
I ran away from home three times and each it was my sister who came to get me, never you.
When I fell through a window and that piece of glass lay pointing at my heart, for I was too light to have my body push down through it, I wasn't relieved, I was disappointed. You didn't stitch me up, my brother is the one who cleaned my cuts and bandaged me up and down.
You didn't help me, it was my sister who taught me how to push our dresser in front of the door when he was on a drunken rampage with a baseball bat, so it would buy time for us to hop through the window and down the street.
It was my sister who held me when I fell of my bed and took the skin off my nose.
It was my brother who read me stories of a brilliant boy named Artemis Fowl who went on adventures.
It was my sister who screamed for him to stop when I played too loud and he smashed my head against the wall.
It was my sister who taught me how to cook and clean
and bought THE LABYRINTH so that I could fall in love with David Bowie and learn to be a girl who didn't need anyone to save her.  
It was my brother who lent me his clothes when he grew so I could get out of those nasty pink dresses with lace that covered every inch of me.
Every time I spoke you said I was a liar and that I should sit down and shut up.
You badgered me for being rude when I didn't speak in public or with family and when I do you laugh and shush me, letting the other people know that I like to exaggerate, I like attention.
and then you scream at me for being rude and that I should sit down and shut up sit down and shut up and that's what I did.

From birth, you said I shouldn't exist and that I was heartless and nothing and cold and dead inside. You blamed me for the world and you still do.

This all happened before I was 8 years old.

When you went to Italy last summer, you went without a word and left me with no food or money. It was another family that sheltered me. It was a man I've met only twice who has become my only father figure and texts me to make sure I'm okay and picks me up and feeds me and gives me a place to stay and helps me indulge in my interests and tries to heal me and treats me like his own daughter.

This is still all you do.
You expect flowers and a card
and chocolate
and the world at your feet
because you have given me the world
and raised me
and cared for me
and loved me.
But when I do the dishes for you as a favor, I can only think about whether the knife I'm cleaning will be plunged into your heart, or mine.

For the woman who tells me I look ugly on prom night, who calls my friends sinners and curses them  tells me I'm fat and nothing and punishes me for things I've never done and won't leave me alone in the doctor's office so that she can "Correct" everything I have to say so that I can't get anxiety or depression or anger medication or a thorough checkup on why my body hurts everyday. To the woman who cries and screams to this **** day that she doesn't understand why I'm a disgusting monster, how she doesn't understand how I turned into a freak. To the woman who openly despises every inch of me that tries so hard to be happy and love everyone and everything,
Happy mother's day.

And those pretty little firefly's
that used to illuminate
the sockets of your eyes
must have been soaked up by your crys
must have fizzled out and died,
inside of you.
Because there's no longer
that burning light
that used to ignite a room
And put the stars to shame.
And since they died out,
you haven't been the same.

And honey, i can try to ignite them again,
With all i have,
But I've done all i can do
darling the match lies in you.

I've been eating all day
yet my body still tells me that I haven't had enough
and that I must eat long after my stomach is painfully full,
long after the taste is bitter,
long after I'm disgusted with myself
and I've forced it all out.

Keep eating
go on
do it
keep eating,
it's all my mind ever says
it's all it has ever said.

what's wrong with me?
why can't I stop it
and plug my ears
and not listen?
why am I so disgusting?

Maybe I'm hoping to eat myself to death,
but in the mean time,
I'm nasty and miserable.
I'm revolting
but I can't stop.
I can't stop.

They tell me it's simple,
really not that hard to do,
Even if you don't believe it,
try to,
say and pretend you do and it'll help.

so I try.
I try my best.
but the words sting my tongue,
they make my heart sink
and a pit bubble in my stomach.
Sometimes they make me cry,
because I try so hard
to believe the words I'm saying
I'm trying so hard to make them true
but I can't,
because I know those words are lies.

"Look in the mirror
and tell yourself you're beautiful,
that you're worth something."
But I can't.
Because it's too big of a lie.

my email is full of weight loss programs
and diet pills
and purging tips
and suggested videos on how to be pretty.

I'm not sure if any of this is helping.

Why is it
That I can’t seem to find you
Half the time
It always feels like you’ll be here
For awhile
Can I say it’s been so long
That I’d forgotten how beautiful
You looked
When you smiled

[Chorus]
But sometimes you’re here
And sometimes you’re not
Sometimes I love you
And sometimes I won’t
Sometimes you love me
And sometimes you don’t
I just wish I could figure out
The reason I can’t live without
Her...

And every time that we get back together
It feels like we’ll be this way forever
But something always goes wrong
The truth is we never last very long...

Because one day we’re happy,
And the next we just fight
Our feelings for each other just disappear
Just like the Northern Lights

[Chorus]

But lately I’ve been feeling sad
And maybe it’s cause she’s looking glad
Cause she’s found another guy
I can tell cause she gets all nervous when he passes by
And I just want to tell her
How much I really do care

And I’d run up and promise her
To always be there
Cause I’ve always loved her
The feelings they don’t ever leave
And hope she feels it too
She’s just gotta, and I want it to be true
And I just want to shout it out
To tell you who I’m crazy about
The one who’s always been around
The truth is I can’t figure out
Why I can’t seem to live without...
You...

Yes you
It’s always been you
I kinda thought you knew
But I let you go
I won’t force you to stay
Now nothing I can say
Will ever make you change your mind
Now those lights in the sky will always remind me
That once you’ve found someone you love
Don’t ever let them slip awayyyy
Awayyyy
No don’t let them
Don’t let them
Don’t let them
Fade away

But if they choose to fly away
If they choose to fly into the sky
They might go today
Or they might go tonight

And I just wanted to tell youuuu
That you were always more magical
More beautiful, more marvellous
More fantastical
Than the Northern Lights.

Stumbling into the yard,
still blinded by electric light.
I look to the sky,
as so many heroes I've read of  have done,
and try to understand what I'm supposed to see.

I see a set of stars,
bright,
they're pretty,
but that's all I can think of to say.

My neck hurts as I crane to look at the sky,
but I persist.
What am I supposed to be seeing?
this mass universe beyond our atmosphere,
I see nothing but a few stars
that all look like they're Orion's Belt.

The wind rustles,
I feel like it's telling me something,
but what?

A few more stars appear,
I didn't notice them.
more and more and more
as my eyes come to an understanding with the night
and I see it.
The sky is bursting with those lights-
but I still wonder what to think.

Should I feel inspired?
motivated?
awed?
puny?
insignificant ?
powerful?

what is it so many great minds
have seen in the sky
that eludes itself from me?

I never think too deeply about anything,
couldn't, even if I tried.
So I just stand with an aching neck
acknowledging their beauty.

I search and search the sky,
neck becoming stiff,
I see small stars lightly throbbing,
and can only think of how this light
is proof of the stars death.
and then I see it,
a shooting star.
It hits me, it hits me all at once.
My first shooting star.
Something about it,
so bold
and swift
and striking,
there for a moment
and gone before I can blink.

Something about it lifted a weight.
I've always wanted to see one,
and now I have
and I felt something.
I'm not sure what,
but it was definitely something.

Feeling satisfied I go back into my room
and blind myself with yellow and blue light.
I have no idea what I got out of staring into the sky for thirty minutes,
I felt something but I know not what.
I only know that I feel like it helped me in a way,
like the sky had talked to my soul,
like I had been keeping my soul caged up like a bird
when it wanted to fly,
it wanted to say hello to the sky.
I'm not sure how looking to the stars that night helped me,
it just did.

I'm going to look at the stars more often,
as much as I can.
Maybe someday I'll find what so many others have found.
Whether it only ever lets my soul fly
or grants me so much more,
I think we should all look to the sky more often.
In times of joy, or sadness, or tragedy,
look to the sky, day or night,
breath it in
and let your soul fly,
for you might find something more.