Seventeen:

I have just come out of my shell, not just from one but for many.

I lay in my bed and know what I am and what I can do.

I am rising to the peak of my life and I am so excited for it.

In my dreams I stand on a stage in front of a conference like a preacher in the pulpit where I govern my savage emotions and thoughts,

Dressed in tuxedos and dress pants,

Now diplomates and people of dignity,

And not in garbs of bloody fabrics

and chain linked steel that carries the reflection of a fifteen year old boy,

Crying,

Shaking,

In a pool of his own agony.

Sixteen:

I know there is hope,

I know there is light,

I just need to find it.

I am sick of this life I’ve been living,

And I still want to live my life,

In a mirror opposite of what it is now.

Were I can live my life as a equilibrium between happiness and sadness.

And not let the negative one get in the way of it.

I cry in my room,

Something that has not happened in two years.

And wonder to myself if I am still lost,

But when I stare out the window of my room

With the faintest ray of light going through the heavily scared pines,

I notice that the “ heavily scarred pines” are not scared anymore

But healed over,

And prison bars are no longer stuck into the window pane.

But the window open.

I just need the courage to get back up and get out.

Fifteen.

I walk in the hallways of my school,

And see all the faces that walk by,

In my mind they glare at me with malicious intent,

As if breathing in the air they breathe,

Or walking by them,

Is an insult.

And need for repercussions.  

I go home from school.

And lay waste to my mind and body.

Feeding myself lies and hurtful words as I was a glutton and it was the only thing to fill the hole quickly.

It was my fault as well as the people I was with.

Serving out those comment like they were just waiting to be expelled.

And me wanting them with arms outstretched.

These words made me think.

What I really was.

I was not Mason,

I was no longer the “Stalker” that people saw me as.

What I was to myself was a Parasite.

And I needed to be eradicated.

I’d go to bed at night,

And think of my own death,

How happy it would make everyone else.

In my bed I would think of the world and society as a clock.

And I would force my gear out of its socket.

Because I thought that losing one gear,

One that was cracked and worn by stress.

As if its steel was heated and tossed into water,

Did not matter.

It would be forgotten.

And it would replaced.

It seemed like I was doing a good deed.

That’s what those hurtful words did to me.

Fourteen

It been one years since he passed.

And I still want my Great Grandfather back.

My family tells me to move on,

When they themselves are not,

So I had no example to go off of.

And using their anger,

And my own wounded mind,

I made my own.

I carved rigids into my body,

Like artisan does to a block of marble.

I could no longer cry for his return,

And so I bled for it.

And I bled for every mistake I made afterwards.

Thirteen.

He is dead.

My great grandfather is gone.

I sat across from the hospital bed beside him.

My family forgot to take me when he was first pronounced.

I did not have the energy in me to say goodbye.

They hugged him,

And I wanted them to leave him alone,

Let him sleep.

So I clung to the words he told me before he died,

Words he told be three days prior:

“Never trust anyone, and don’t tell no one anything”.

I took it to heart.

And never let the memory go.

Twelve

“He is going away.

He won’t come back.

Enjoy the time you have with him.

Go to bed,

Leave the adults alone,

They knew him more than you did.”

You tell this to the person,

Who spent every waking moment with him,

While you spat on his name behind his back.

Eleven

I hide behind a pine tree,

Lashinging at it with harmful intent,

For my parents have locked me outside,

In the rain,

Lightning over my head,

The wind blowing me backwards,

And I can’t come in,

Till eight o'clock at night

It is five o'clock in the evening.

I cry with every lash I make to the tree,

For my great grandparents to come and get me.

Ten

I get made fun of for my weight,

And that knowledge will never solve my problems,

That books are poison,

And I should not be by them.

The bookshelf is broken,

The third one I’ve had.

My books are burning in a fire pit

The smell of burnt paper and the wheezing breath of the books makes me nauseous.

So I put my head up and look to the sky for clarity,

And am greeted with the flakes of chapters blowing away in the wind.

Nine

I get pushed from the house,

I watch my dog get kicked across the room,

I watch my toys burn,

Buildings constructed with legos that I had spent says working on.

I am told I will never do anything in my life worthwhile.

I have all of my books,

My home from home books.

I am on my second book shelf

Eight

I sit on the deck,

And wait to come in,

It is raining,

I am wet,

I am cold,

The wind ruffles my shirt as if I am a sailor in some deathly storm.

The blinds are shut,

So my parents dont see me looking through the window.

I come inside at eight.

I go to my room and read by the heater

I scouch to the bookshelf,

My parents come in,

Bringing with them the smell of beer

Lingering on their breath,

They don’t like this.

As I sit under the bookshelf,

My step-father shoves it on top of me.

This is not the first time.

But unlike the others there is more force.

The books fall on top of me harder,

My head goes through the backboard.

Splinters stick to my face and chest,

This is the first bookshelf broken.

Seven

It is the the first year living with my stepfather

He hates me.

He yells at my mother.

Punches her.

Slaps her.

Calls her names.

And my mother tells me to go to my room and read a book.

My safe place.

A place where I put bars over the windows in my mind.

To keep the darkness out.

Because I am afraid of the dark,

And what will come in the future.

I begin to think that this is the definition of family.

Six:

I meet my step father for the first time.

He is nice to me.

He says kind words to my mother,

He makes her happy,

I am happy.

Everyone is.

Five:

I live with my great grandparents

My mother is to drunk to take care of me.

I work with my great grandfather at his golf range.

I help my great grandmother at her house

They see potential in me.

They want me to succeed in life.

I feel loved.

Not by the person I came from.

But by another people.

A different generation.

And I love feelings I get.

Four:

I sit and watch spongebob,

I run in the yard,

I chase for elves,

My mother is gone.

My great grandparents are here to take her place.

Three is a repeat of four

Two is a repeat of three

One is a repeat of two

Zero:

I came into the world two months early,

With blood leaking from my brain.

The doctors gave me a 50% shot at living

And a highly likely chance that I would have a mental disorder.

I breathe in the incubator,

Covered in wires and cords,

The doctors thinking that if I did not have them,

I would fall apart.