Now comes the time of alternate opinions,

alternate thoughts and alternate feelings.

The kind you don’t dare say out loud.

I wonder how much pain it’ll take to stop?

I wonder how much love is too much?

I wonder how many nights are lost because—

When biting your nails to the bone seems useless

then what else is there, really but to stop.

Or else keep biting, bone can’t be that hard can it?

Still I’d rather draw the blinds or go outside.

Hell I’d rather lay down and die than live a lie.

You see, these things we don’t dare say out loud,

reserved for private evenings

start to find us in our daytime logic,

prying to be let out like a mangled dog.

And won’t we wear our self destruction like a choker.

Like a badge of honor.

Like a cruel

cold

chain—of events.

Won’t we kneel and pray before we give our due.

Won’t we commit ourselves to countless acts of excruciating

self-reliance just to know we did it alone.

It’s that feeling of being so good that it feels you’re no good at all.

That feeling of having tried so hard, for so long,

against so many odds, such awful scrutiny

and then being told I told you so,

like all your effort was for not—but it was.

Now comes the time of alternate opinions,

where everybody told you so, where everybody seems to know.

Now comes the time of alternate thoughts,

where nothing seems right, where everything feels wrong.

Now comes the time of alternate feelings,

where maybe you jumped the gun, but who am I to say?

I put the barrel to my temple a long time ago.

And let the dog run free.

We speak a different language,

I know that you do too—

It’s the kind they don’t dare speak out loud.

It’s the kind they put us down for.