stories

they speak stories, history of life
that nobody knew about
until like a fountain they opened
their lips and water streamed out
onto paper,
black words and black stories
that we all whispered about,
that we were scared to believe,
because when they revealed the world to me,
the trees and the sky that used to lay my head to rest
became a metaphor of life.
i didn't want to be stuck here while the world
took me to a final resting place without a fight.
but at least they were alive, with fire in their souls
and fire on their lips they were ready to die.
to carry on a legacy that they grew under, that sometimes,
was as simple as "Beat me bloody, and i'll write back,"
or "tell me i can't i can't hold the world in my hands"
as if they all spoke the same, in different words but in the same vein,

but sometimes, in the black,
their stories took me from out of me,
they took me with them in their journey of finding peace, or happiness, or love,
if any of those things existed
together we'd find it. they called it resilience.
every slap in the face, every derogatory word, every backstabbing bastard
became a lightbulb,
blinking furiously until i finally found a taste for anger and bitterness,
the stories were all stamped on their foreheads -
"raped." said the first,
the second, "Poverty is a curse."
"Me," started the next, "I cut me because i never bleed."
i live in a world so haunted by phantoms that it has grown
impervious to the pain.
I never bleed enough. how could you begin a story that has no end?
their stories made me know their pain so well i became hard as hell
until
the stories in black cried for the last time -
now it's my turn to write them back.

--remind me to write, it's going to be about the angry waking up in the morning because that's all i ever knew.