Redemption.

There's no more room for my sun to rise,
and my moon is getting tired of my restless eyes.
I've begged this world to love me,
and sometimes I think it might,
but only just before it kisses my cheek
with its sucker punch.

My wrists are anxious,
afraid of opening and spilling their bloody guts to me.
And my stomach is tired of getting shot
with bullets the size of my worry.
My bones are a creaky house,
inhabited by the loneliness that gets no use,
left to decay.
they creak so much I know they'll one day break.
I have a heart as strong as oxen
but my soul is a tattered scrapbook,
drown by all the memories I wish meant more.
Because every mother stops photographing your memories
once you're old enough to remember them yourself.

This is my body and its terrified
and it hopes that praying will bring it wings,
at the very last second,
when I leap forward and not back.
My waist is my bible belt,
and I'm wearing it loose like old wedding rings.
My body is the world's punching bag,
and I'm praying to God to stop this world from hating me.

There are a million kids like me.
Tired and worn and praying to a God that's given up.
They're trying to convince themselves that life is not worth giving up,
but how long will they be enough?
God knows they're the reason I've held on for so long.
Like the last kid on the monkey bars,
just to show them that its possible if only they would try.
And I hope my hope is the echo in a cave,
bouncing off of every wall and reaching every ear.
'Cause I've been 18 years
drowning in my sorrow,
but I still keep kicking, and swimming back to the top,
because we are battlefields,
war cries, survivors, and mementos of hope
and we can do this.

We are years of surviving.
We are the bells of hope chiming.