These Words I Write

[shawnfranco]

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So here I am.

I'm standing in this world with my hands open

ready to catch anything that's thrown at me.

My feet are planted but ready to be let free.

And I'm only nineteen so at this age,

I'm still a nobody just trying to prove what I've got.

I've got a heart that beats faster then what my feet can chase

and my eyes see more visions then what my mind can count.

I spend more time counting sheep to go to sleep

then the time I spend sleeping

and I've seen more pigs fly

then the promises kept to be fulfilled when they do.

I push sewage through my veins

to remind me of all the shit I've bled for

but my fingers are still fragile

to remind me of the elegance in my touch.

And I'm only nineteen so at this age,

I'm still too young to know shit about anything

so I don't know why I write.

Or why I write what I write about

but I just write to get something out, I guess.

Because every word I spill is what I burn and what I feel.

I've got just as much to say as anyone else out there

and this is how I choose to say it.

I'll tell you about my life in three minutes.

I cast my reflection with poems.

I hold my heart outside my chest

and cemeteries are carried on my back

as I walk with every dead part of me

from each year that's laid to rest.

So give me something to live for.

Read these words so that you can read me.

I'm an open book.

My chapters are ready for you to judge.

I have blue skies and dark nights swallowed in my stomach.

Examine every dove and every plague that fills them.

Tell me that these words I write are worth writing

and that this ambition I have is worth the wait.

I've got bigger fires burning inside me then what I'm living.

I scan groceries eight hours a day,

six days a week.

And its not even enough to have my own place to stay

and its barely enough to have enough to eat

and the worst part of it is,

is that I don't eat or drink dairy and I don't eat meat.

My bones show right through my skin these days.

And at this age,

I don't want to do anything but just live my dreams

but at this age,

it seems like I'm just living to breathe.

And when I was five years old,

I wanted to be a ninja and move to Japan

and I wanted to one day be the first non-white president and well,

those things still haven't happened yet

but I still have dreams.

My mind is in the clouds more then half the time these days

because at this age,

my feet are still planted to the ground

and when I walk, I walk through fog.

And I don't know if this road I walk is going to take me where I dream to be

or where its even going to take me at all.

And I hope that the sun shines soon

because it's frustrating walking with blindfolds and trying to find direction.

I sometimes think that my dreams are too big

and my hands are too small to grab them.

And that the hills are too steep

and my thighs are to weak to walk them.

Maybe one of these days,

I'll learn how to use these limbs I have.

And sometimes on dark nights,

I throw rocks at streetlights just so I could see the stars.

And I find myself gazing up at them

and wishing that I could breathe in the fires that this galaxy holds

so that I could have something inside of me that nobody else holds.

That nobody else breathes and that nobody else knows.

Because I know that I was made to do things to make this life my own

because I've got hands with fingerprints that are my own.

And I might have a heart that beats faster then what my feet can chase,

but when I learn how to use these limbs,

I'll catch up to this heart I have and run with its pace

and climb every hill that I've ever faced,

and breathe in the stars and get a taste of what living actually means.

And I'm only nineteen so I still have dreams.

And I still don't know what being a man means but to be honest,

I really don't care.

Because I only have one life to live

and no matter what "the man" says,

I'm sticking it to him and living my own life.

I cast my reflection with poems

because it's about the only thing I know how to do at this age.

And these days,

I just write my days and nights away

while I wait for this thing called life,

shape me into the man I'm supposed to be in it's own time.

-Shawn Franco