Boys Will Be Boys

The stars reached back Each night When I prayed that I would wake up and the pain would be over And that everything everyone had ever said to me And every name they had ever called me Was all a bad dream The worst, shittiest nightmare of a dream That never ended No matter how many times I fell asleep Because sleep was my escape But escapes don’t last forever And dreams don’t last forever But nightmares can last forever But, no matter what, I can’t help you You miserable excuse for a friend You ruined what I was You hardened the face that once smiled The face that used to light up a room Had been hardened to stone by a society That believed that “gay” was synonymous with “weird” And that “bully” was synonymous with “joke” But the fact is you were the joke The joke that kept replaying in my head And laughing at me Even after the jokes had stopped the joke kept going The joke was me; I was a joke to everyone, even myself And my dad would joke that I should man up And my mom would joke that the other kids were insecure And my brother would joke that he made it through And everyone else would joke that “boys will be boys” But I didn't see the joke in any of it There was no joke in my tears And there was no joke in the forty pounds I lost when I stopped eating You just can’t get enough of the pain But your pain doesn’t have to be my pain So, so what if boys aren’t supposed to cut themselves? And so what if boys aren’t supposed to cry? And so what if boys aren’t supposed to be the ones who become anorexic? I’m a boy and I did it all And what can you say about yourself? You’re a sad excuse for a boy So put away the guns and fists And pick up a pen and a paper And figure yourself out Before you tear someone else down to their foundation And let the rain ruin their ability to stand themselves And I think That the healing came When I realized that someday you would be on the bottom And someone would tear you down And you would sit there as the rain poured in And you would drown in your regret And I would still send out a life jacket for you Because you ruined the outside smile But you didn’t ruin the inside faith And the faith got me through Because tomorrow is brighter And the sunshine does come after the rain