I'm Nothing

At the age of 4,
I learned that I could wear what ever the fuck I wanted and completely
get away with it.
Create abstract photographs with my dad laughing
in the background while I sport a classy
bucket on my head, grey snow boots,
short shorts and pose real hard

with every finger possible in my nostrils.
In the mind of a toddler,
this was my red carpet.
My designer labeled, diamonds and leather
mother fucking
Reading Rainbow t shirt.
I was brighter than most stars
with a high awareness of sexy and
a self esteem that had no dents
from magazines, mass media or
models endorsing anything that didn't involve
this god damn bucket,

I'm pretty sure no ones taken that one yet.

But when I woke up at the age of 9 and realized
my innocence had been stolen, buried weeks earlier
in a casket with my mother,
I learned that I can't get away with everything.
That not all of lifes events can be imaginative creations
to put up on the refrigerator and laugh about.
Sometimes the photographs are under developed, black and white
and have nothing but a little child at the foot of a hospital bed
watching the faces of family members wondering
how he should react to death.

So when I let you in and gave you a spot next to where
hers used to be,
I let you know that you could get away with anything.
That you could spit in my face, burn memories of ex girlfriends
and on most days,
I would break down in your arms.
I would apologize for not being strong enough
for not being tall enough
for not being the man I thought I was and for not
standing on my own two feet without you to make me feel whole.
I said sorry so much that the meaning became as distant as your feelings
and it took months before I found out that
you had already shoved me out of your heart.
Replaced me with drinks, cocaine and co workers
who you swore you weren't sleeping with
while I was in bed alone.
But I was wrong and you were right
and I loved you but I didn't love myself
and I let you know at every given moment
that you could get away with everything

as long as you didn't leave me.
That I would push all the hard fights
bruises and empty beds
to the back of my mind if you
could just put me before your partying.
Before a few of your Friday nights, which carried into Saturday nights,
which then left you missing on Sundays and unlike Rebecca Black,
I began to stop looking forward to the weekends.
I started to soak into the routines of driving us to school,
picking you up from work, and laying around getting stoned
like this was what love is.
Escaping the darkness into a coma realm where hearts hardly beat
and if they did,
it was softly and unspoken and so closed off from our emotions
that kissing felt like nothing.
Numb like the drugs we kept in our lungs and noses
to cover up that we weren't getting away with this relationship
and eventually

one of us was going to leave.
Strut our way down loveless red carpets,
heads hung from losing labels and diamond feelings
thinking that

I wasn't sexy enough
or I wasn't tall enough
or I wasn't the man she thought I was and
she would still be with me if
I didn't let her get away.

Now all I have are a few scars
and pictures of times when smiling actually felt wrong.
When forcing outfits over emotions that didn't match
was fashionable and fun and
of times when I thought

I knew what love is.