what happened when i stepped offstage

"Who I am and who I wanna be cannot connect; why?

.... I know I like to preach to always be yourself / but my emotions make me feel like i am someone else

Me and pride had made a pact that we don't need no help / which feels like I'm at war inside myself but I forgot the shells 

I hold my issue up for all to see, like show and tell / A lot of people know me, but not a lot know me well." 

from "WHY" by NF

via 

i once thought it would stay in my head

one person's dreams, one person's feelings, too small and strange to be of any significance

but the moment came and i couldn't stop them

and light of my own inspiration shone bright for a moment in time

the floodgates of the mind, once opened, stay open.

it's a flow that can't be stopped until the sunrise and it dries

in the drought of its own disappointment

are words a gift? is expression a curse?

i write and fight with words for swords

battle after battle, win after loss

but the loss always returns.

i write to satisfy my aching heart

and heal the hurts i see and feel. 

and maybe i have:

maybe i've helped to heal an aching heart.

but if i did, then the heart wasn't mine

i spoke about fear, but fear still speaks for me

i advocated for empathy, but mine is entangled with anger

i crowned my scars in beauty to stop the bleeding

but it seems i'm bleeding out

i once thought it would heal me, change me

the words were meant for me all along, weren't they?

but the moment is gone and i'm no different 

and my inspiration seems in vain

maybe i walked a tightrope and didn't know it

maybe i'm broken because i stepped off the string

but maybe there was no rope

just a strand of silk, a figment of my own imagination

i wanted to be the light 

but i'm at the bottom of my own dark hole

and i wonder why i even bothered 

to be honest

if honesty reveals how hopeless i am.

i look in the mirror and fear to see a mask,

the mask i never wanted to wear:

the mask of a hypocrite, a coward

who couldn't even follow her own advice

for one glittering diamond of time

i thought i'd done it:

healed myself

patched the pieces together with poetry

sewn the sections together with a story - my own story,

the broken one. but i guess it failed

i guess i can't fix brokenness with brokenness

i wanted to be whole but from my hole i couldn't climb

the distance from the hole to being made Whole was far

and i wondered why i even bothered 

who am i to preach if i haven't found the Father?

yes, who am i?

a young girl with nothing but words

to bring to battle she faces 

the moment she steps out of bed each morning?

if that's it, then i am not enough

all i have is my heart and seventeen years of it being broken

and repaired over and over and over again

i can't speak of change when i can't do it myself

i'm angry and the pain is piercing

why are my words one thing and my life another?

this narrative is never-ending and i make a poor narrator

are words a gift? is expression a curse?

the narrative never stops changing

but the cycle remains the same

did i win? did i lose?

was it a loss to tell the unfinished story?

or was it just a single battle's victory, the prelude for another day's fight?

was it just another tide, brushing the shore before sliding back once more?

there's a crack in my mirror,

so i cannot see myself as i am

i'm sobbing at my own image. what's real? i don't know anymore

the image shatters

spills shards on the floor

leaves scars on my hands as i try to repair it

and i put down the pieces

and hold out my hands

because the scars, at least, are real.