A Poem

My friend has an apartment
A trade
A conventional relationship
With a good girl to settle down with
She's lovely, really
And when we talk he gives me that smile
That smile
That laugh
That says he's grown up
And he's waiting for me to catch up

And it hurts because I have nothing he has.

But then I think
He's the same as he was in highschool
He'd finished growing then
So he thought
His highschool sweetheart
His highschool job
His highschool ambitions
His highschool emotions
He stopped growing
So he is smaller than me
Even as I tilt my head back to look him in the eye

I have been through so much
I have been beaten.
I have been broken.
I have been dependant.
I have been a murder victim
I have jumped off bridges
I have had my brain tear itself asunder
I have been told by doctors that I am out of options
I have made my own options
I have overcome
I have grown.
I have beaten this.
I have become so much more than I ever was.
I have become so much larger than him.
I have faced down his smile and his laugh and I think

If you had been me you could not smile
If you had been me you could not laugh
If you had been me you could not have survived.

And I do smile back at him, and I do laugh back at him, and I hope he never has to grow up.

EDIT 1: PEAR CAVED!
EDIT 2: SO DID ARAGON

Comments

[MrNumbers]

Another short one:

"I want to go home"
He said lying in his own bed
Staring at his own ceiling

And the palette cleanser:

I woke up this morning
and smiled.

I'll see if I can't get Aragon and Pear to post some of theirs; They blew me out of the goddamn water today.

[Tethered-Angel]

Nice. Sad, but nice.

[Super Trampoline]

I’m really really happy you’re in such a better place than you used to be, even if the path to get there wasn’t pleasant and is far from over.

Also I really want to hear Aragon’s poetry now.

[PhycoKrusk]

4819971
That first one really hurts in some ways.

[CrystalWaters]

I wonder about personal growth sometimes.
What (if anything) it means, how it works, how it feels...

4819971
The first one sounds like me sometimes.

The second one; it's good when you're naturally smiling.
It just feels weird when you realise that you're doing it.

[Bad Horse]

4819971

"I want to go home"
He said lying in his own bed
Staring at his own ceiling

That's devastating. I've done that.

[MrNumbers]

4820002 4819996

Since that's the one that's getting commented on, I might as well add this one;

Loneliness is standing in a room full of people
You don't want to talk to
Who don't want to talk to you
Being too scared to leave
But too ashamed to stay.

[Scratchpad]

I'm curious... how much is art, and how much is a cry for help?

[Bad Horse]

4820024 Those categories intersect.

[Aragon]

4819971

They blew me out of the goddamn water today.

Nah. Maybe Pear, but you two were on point; the rest of us were just flailing helplessly, trying not to make too much of a mess.

Good ones, mate. Show em how it's done.