My Tale of Trying

I am trying very hard
I am trying desperately
I am clinging to this sanity
with every fiber of my being
and it's the hardest thing I've done

After my great big mess-
the blood on my bed sheets and
the bright flashing lights-
I thought that I would either perish
or be fixed

I didn't perish
and so I thought that all of the white walls
and the plastic wristbands and the government
employed physicians would patch me up
and all would be well

But the pieces of clothe that they used
to close up my holes were old and had stories of their own
and if I reach my fingers just the right way
I can poke a tiny bit of my stuffing so that it peeks out
from between the thread that is holding me together

And those doctors may have
opened up the windows inside of me
so that sunlight may stream in
But the night has to come sometime
And I've never been one to cherish the light anyway

I was born on the first rainy day
of a sweltering Texas summer
And it didn't just rain it poured
As if God was somewhere up in heaven
crying out His great big eyes

I tore my mama from the inside out
and took pieces of her with me but she still
held me gently in her arms as she bled inside herself
and she still loved me fiercely
even though my life almost took hers away

She's still changed inside because of
the choice that she made and sometimes
I think she made the wrong one, that maybe she
should have laid me down in a tiny coffin
rather than a bassinet

I was supposed to die then,
at the very start of everything
and that is the reason this darkness
follows me around like a shadow
that won't leave my side

I was never a happy child, not really
I thought that perhaps my purpose
was simply to be a vessel
for a great deal of sadness
so that others may not have to feel it   

I would fill my pockets with lady bugs
and lay in the grass, pretending that
the lady bugs were small stones
and the grass was a pond
and my tiny body was sinking, sinking, sinking

I did try to be happy though
I played with my dolls and watched my shows
and smiled like it meant something
I tried and tried, until I realized every family
has a tragedy and I would be the one for mine

I was the sick one, the distant one
the child with more reservations than the continental U.S.
Defined by the sad songs on my cellphone
and all the things I never had
I would be the hard birth and the easy death

I don't know where the thought started
but I got it in my head that I would be the one
to unite my family, through my final departure
I would create an excuse
for all of the animosity between them

Resting in a bed of dirt and dressed in black gossamer,
I would reach out through death
and give my family one solitary thing to love
or hate or regret or question and their pain
would bind them closer than their shared blood

I tried to fight the idea;
fight my fate; fight the darkness
Even then I tried
But it found new ways to sneak in
through old cracks in my resolve

I was a burden, a great terrible burden
I was the ugly one, the one child of three
who couldn't do anything well
The girl who hid in books and cried
at even the slightest provocation

I was the sick daughter,
the overly-sensitive sister
The girl in class who no one wanted to talk to
I was a presence to be endured
rather than appreciated

I was an extra weight that no one
wanted to carry,
I was a massive waste of space
I would be better off dead
And still I tried to fight

I made myself funny, and kind and lovable
I made myself into someone
who just might be missed
I tried and tried and tried
But the darkness tried back

It tried until I didn't have a reason,
I didn't have another part to play,
I just had pain and I wanted so badly for it to end
And the only perfect end, the blank screen after the credits
the true grand finale - is death

I craved it like a freezing man craves warmth
And so I tried to bring it the best way I knew how;
with pills and a shard of broken glass
but I kept on breathing, and my heart kept beating
so I let those PhD's sew me closed

They did a poor job, because I can
still see bits of the white fluff
that is meant to fill me but,
everyone has stitching,
and sometimes threads fray and come undone

But mosaics are works of art,
made from broken pieces
because you can make anything beautiful
you just have to try
And I swear to God I will keep on trying.