b e c a u s e

I'm committing
to look at the clock
fewer times throughout
my days
b e c a u s e
it keeps telling me how
small I am and
despite
how that makes me feel
it marches
on.

Please stop with your
vacillation between 12 and 12 and 12
while I'm paralyzed into inaction
waiting for and accepting failure
b e c a u s e
I can't expose myself to the very
thing I came here to be.

I feel around my skin for old scars and scabs
that I can pick open again
old friends and lovers who will awaken
something in me other than the dull,
consuming, apathy that chains me to the bed
b e c a u s e
I want to remember the times that I felt
like something other than
painfully mediocre.

I was dropped off on the top of this mountain
and I wish I could say that I didn't ask for this
but I did and it was
the only thing I ever wanted
and I'm too proud and in love to give it all back
but it's more than wanting to be right.
I am here because I'm meant to be.
I'm here and I just need to forgive myself
b e c a u s e
if I don't, who will take my place
to keep hating myself.

I'm committing
again
to go outside
to go out in the big city
that I naively placed myself in the center of
b e c a u s e
I need the cold air to bite me.

No one lives in this district
everyone just builds a story to tell here
and when the sentimental part of the year
inevitably comes
everyone goes back
to where they're really from
and I stayed here
b e c a u s e
lonely is better than home.

Lonely has been burning through me.
It makes me
want to reach out
to the people who hurt me after they loved me
or while they loved me
b e c a u s e
I'm tired of hurting myself
and I just need someone else
to
take
a
turn.