Why do you say the things you
Always go and say?
Do the gears in your mind properly
Operate?
Why did you wear plain grey shirts
Each day in 7th grade?
What did you want to hide from? What did you anticipate?

“Sorry that slipped out”
You should take that back
But lightning struck and the roar
Of thunder surrounds you

Who prescribed those lenses
That cause such ache and strain?
Distort self-vision, make it grainy
Pixelate
What rivers feed the roaring waves that
Crash down on your plains?
Recede to razor shells and driftwood
Sliced through foot in vain

Where did it come from?
That ever present ring?
Tinnitus built from years
Of feeling so different

When I flew home this winter
I stared down the family tree
Held the branches in my hand
And fingered the brown leaves
Asked the alcoholic, the immigrant, what would you think if you saw me now?

Hand-me-down generational anxieties, Ghosts of those passed
Passed on by people who know what it means to overcome their pasts
Who’ve given all of themselves to ensure their child grows up well

Went through the darkest days I’ve seen so far, unsure if there’s more to come
Sunless days and silent nights measured in accumulated dread
Of what was to come next

Every interaction icier than Klyuchevaya sidewalks
Slipping on each and every word, break a bone if I dared leave my house
Felt like a shard of glass from the clear window I was or maybe wasn’t before

But i went back 4,000 miles to confront myself
And the image of a person incapable of loving the things
Surrounding them that brought them joy not so long ago
Cause they’re not normal, they’re abnormal,

I couldn’t find a wonder cure to lack of self-confidence
And the tunnel vision feeling that every movement is significant
And idea that others see crooked lines and a jagged person just cause that’s what i see
But I think I understand the problem better now cause it’s

A note in my telephone no one is noticing
Because my abnormal to them is what their torn jeans are to me
Know I’m normal tell myself
No, I’m normal
As I am