i'm in so much pain again but i can't find it.
it's there, really in there i know.

the type that screws out of your throat, 
the type to wrench your eyes like a bloody towel. 

all i can think about is how sorry i am 
that i can't be what everyone needs me to be. 

i'm scared this is starting to sound like a 
                               suicide note. 

the guttural fear that shouts through me when i 
realize i am but a signal flare wrapped in skin.

it will be okay.
it will be, okay?

i refuse to eat dirt longer than i need to. 
stomp my face into this ground and i can't deny 
     
the view up is still   
                     angelic

please understand: i will always hold a down dog, up.
i can see everyone's pain just as clearly as my own, 
no differently, never usually. 

because

i am my father's daughter but he is not my father. 
i am loyal to an unpredictable mother 
  
  doomed to feel her thumb press 
  into the wound for the rest of my life 
  because that touch is love, no? 

i am an absent sister, distantly admiring 
her blossoming, unbutchered by my influence.

i am a leftover idea of the person i promised to be
i am a splintered, soot-filled, sad girl

muddy from the rain
and wondering how 
something
so soft,
hurts