I long for the autumn that defines my year
Where I can finally measure up
I can finally become the person that the people I surround myself with
Already are
For colder weather that indicates seasons for sports that I play
Simply to say that I've done something
To say that I have seen a glimmer of what it's like
To do something that people will love.
For fall to arrive and to immerse myself in stress
So I can stop thinking about my future
About my obligations
And focus on being something that people will love
Transform myself into something they think is better than who I am
And perhaps stop asking myself,
Perhaps I will stop repeating the mantra, the age-old question-
Why do I surround myself with people that are better than me?
As if it is a contest and I am the only competitor
Racing, racing to the top
Hoping to see what exactly is over this wall that my friends have seen
To measure up in age, in accomplishments, concerts, grades
Why am I the jack of all trades and the master of none?
I can do so much, I meet requirements
How is this town okay with simply meeting requirements?
...And then I realized something.
I long for autumn, for the seasons that represent change
Not because I am in dire need of new things to do
To possibly prove myself worthy
But because it means I am one season closer to leaving a town and people
Who are okay with meeting requirements
And I am one step closer, one step higher,
To reaching things that supersede any requirement given to me.

What in whoever-the-hell's-up-there name am I doing?
Who am I to question history?
Follow the lines of this directed system,
Make yourself appear kind and gentle enough
To be accepted into afterlives put forth by humans
Who waste their here-lives mauling over what if's-
What if they're right?
But whoever the hell I have to **** up to, God, what if they're wrong?
Do I risk my spot among the great
In order to live the life I want to while I still know it's real?
I cannot question the tangibility of this world because the key word here-
Tangible- tangible, I can feel you, I can feel the grass
And I can feel these people and because you are real
I am not alone.
I cannot depend on something that isn't tactile, that isn't tangible
Because I cannot touch what I don't know
I cannot touch what can be speculated as unreal.
But who am I to judge what is real and unreal?
If there is nothing unreal to depend on, no god or supreme beings,
No something that is controlling my very being,
Then why do I chew on the idea that it could be real?
Tell me, what constitutes something real?

When I travel, I find home.
Home is so strictly defined and constricted
****** in, forced to **** in,
Constrictions put forth by suffocating friends
Where small towns tighten the rope
It has placed around my neck.
I am the dog on the leash that is surrounded
By every tree and every ball in the biggest park
Who is tied to the tree and forgotten
Beaten and told to stay.
We grow up being force fed the idea of thinking small,
Staying small, working small, living small
But this world is too big to live small!
I travel and find the people that I call home
I find the shacks and shanties and weathered souls
And every single person you and I will meet,
Mutual or not,
Knows something that you and I don't know
And if that doesn't spark enough curiosity,
Get out of the house.
There is so much to learn and so much to absorb
And maybe your house is your home
Everyone, at some point, has a home,
Some just travel with you,
Others you have to find.

How tragic it is to be a thinker.
To have such a remarkable ability
To possess something that creates
While, in that process, destroys.
I associate with a group of thinkers
With no clear place to direct our ideas
So they bounce around in our heads
Gaining force and speed
Becoming more and more painful
Until you can label our brains
As a weapon of self-destruction.
I associate with a group of thinkers
Who have thought themselves
Into pits of depression
Because numbers and endless possibilities
Never stop filtering through their head.
How sad it is that I associate with people that I can't help
I am friends with people
Who have driven themselves into introversion
People that have too many thoughts to collaborate on
But have catapulted themselves into the depths of their own mind
An entirely too frightening place to be
On your own.
How tragic it is to be listening to your friends
Evaluating his state of mind
While you sit in the back of the car
And stare at the analog clock on the dashboard
Thinking about different number combinations for 12:36
That 1x2x3=6 and 1+2+3=6 and 6-3=2+1 and 6/3=2+1
How tragic it is to associate with a group of thinkers
With no clear place to direct their thoughts
And to be a person who cannot pull their friends out
From the murky waters of their own mind
Let alone herself.

Every time
A car saunters by
In the blistering heat
Breaking up the visible waves
And making my heart skip a beat
I think of how unholy I must seem now
Only because you simply
Cannot, will not
Just leave me alone.
I'm shutting myself in
In my house, in my mind
Because I am so afraid
Of confrontation with you
Of interrogation
Of your judging looks and incriminating comments
That make me feel even worse
I'm scared to go back
You have scared me out of religion
Out of believing
You have shut me in
Like you tried to shove me into the doors of your church.
Every time a white truck
Pulls into the driveway across the street
Of just how everyone is a sinner
How you have tied me down there forever
How lost I am, when I know right where to go
How you shut me in and secured the doors
Removed my comfort and injected paranoia
Just leave me alone
In my shut-in mind
Because I do not want to go back to your church.
*******.

He slams the door
To walk outside and continue to grill
And I remember that it's 5 o'clock on Sunday
Prime time for him to be sleeping
I remember all the Sundays when I was little
How I would cry my eyes out
I dreaded the thought of going to school the next day
Because I would have to leave my parents
Particularly, my father
How I would beg for him to come to school with me
Begging because I missed him so much.
I remember the Sunday when I came in carrying a box
When he was slamming the door, when he broke a mug
How I heard him yell and I threw down the box
How I ran into the garage to cry
When he came out and hugged me
And I cried and bawled and hugged him harder than ever before
How these Sundays have changed to doors slamming
To headphones and the grill going
To falling asleep shortly after 5,
How they have not changed in the fact
That I still sometimes cry on Sundays,
Shortly after 5 o'clock.

The news that I'm not getting better
I would say is entirely true
If better is not crying at every last thought
And news means it hasn't got to you.
It travels too fast for me to catch up
Which I say like I wanted it to
But I never thought I'd decline like this
That I'd push away my one of the few.
Tonight I'll have dreams of my laughter
And wander around houses of glass
Resist all impulses to break down the walls
With the sticks and the stones of my past.
I'll regret all the choices that I ever have made
Apologize for what I have done
Shove feel-better statements down my plugged-up throat
And accept that I might as well be shunned.
I'll lock myself up in this mountain of glass
Look through glass that I'll wish you won't see
My appearance is enough to explain to you
I'm too broken to convey any feelings.