Right and wrong
good and bad
perfect and imperfect
more and less
less is more
self-correct but
take direction
I’m sick of listening to your
nit-picked manipulations
I’ve been corrected my whole life
for everything I do
What I eat, what I say
how I feel, how I move.
Unfortunately for both of us
I am smart, and all this direction
has made me unwell.
A splint on my soul,
a corrective brace in place
of love, understanding, empathy.
They should’ve tried to help, but instead
they shamed and smothered my
individuality.
They always start to suggest
a way for me to be my best
I cannot be a different way,
I am supposed to be myself, they say.
Be true to yourself!
But not like that.
Imagine how happy you could be
if you’d just try this, or change that.
I’m done being corrected,
they fix me up and I
break myself, faster, harder.
I’ve had it being fixed,
I’m sick, sad, and I shape-shift.
Fucking what even
Don’t put some shape-shifty bitch in a mold
and get mad when she breaks it.
You’re the idiot who never learns,
not some poor kid you see as defective.
I wasn’t born a shapeshifter,
I had to learn
I had to teach myself to shape-shift
to be able to make it through this world
A phoenix, rising up from the ashes
only to find it’s new home
is a cage, full of self-hatred
punitive living,
daily lashes.
I used to think
that if I carved it in
the scars would help the message sink.
Now, I see them.
Faint marks where emotion had been
hoping to make me better
hoping to let the punishment in
They taught me how to self-correct,
they taught me how to discipline
I thought I’d let the right ones in–
but all they know is pain, and fear.
They taught me how to punish
When what I needed was a friend–
a mother, a parent.
You taught me how to punish,
you told me not to feel.
All I ever needed
was someone to teach me how to heal.