How many times can someone say something before you believe it

How many times can you lose yourself in others words

How many times can you be buried in the ground before you simply lay in the grave for them

How many times does the same knife cut

How many times does it take for that knife to dull

How many times can you say you beat them

How many times have you said if you can't beat them join them

How many times have you cried alone in rooms

How many times have you cried in a room full of people

How many times was it both

How many times have you degraded yourself to their standards

How many times have you lost yourself in their game

How many times have you been broken beyond repair

How many times has it been another who pieced you back together

How many times was giving up better than holding on

How many times have you contemplated that maybe your razor doesn't need to just shave away hair

How many times have we heard the same story

How many times before it stops

How many times?

Blur like lines on the driveway in chalk

Rain comes and rain pours

The once hued driveway back to boring black

Dissipating from waves of colorless liquid

Lost art

Stolen from you by someone greater

Take up that chalk again I beg

Become the Picasso of the sidewalk

Producing paintings of grandeur

Because even when the rain comes

And it will

Temporary is better than nothing at all

"Why? Why, when chained, does a wounded animal still cry out?"

"I do not know."

And although Death knows all

Death knows not

"Why does man flee fate?

Why does heart love pain?

Why does survival beat all other instinct?

Futility of life is the true fear of humanity,

So like many before

I ran from that which haunted me."

"I see."

"You see not which is the reason why."

50 dead

53 injured

Death tallies still increasing

Bodies not yet identified

Cause unclear

Fbi to make a statement

Lone wolf attackers are situtations we can't stop

Ar-15

Military grade weapon

Assault style rifle

Lone wolf attackers are situtations we can't stop

Gunman may have had anti-gay leanings

Attributed to seeing men kissing each other on street

Showing public affection was never such and affliction

Lone wolf attackers are situations we can't stop

Location identified as Pulse nightclub

Part of the LGBT community in Orlando

Support is raining in from throughout the city

Lone wolf attackers are situations we can't stop

Lone wolf attackers are situations

Stop there

News sources

Brewing up emotion

Like a blood red tea bag

But it over seeped

Too many times

Are they exposing to the same devastation

The boy who cried wolf was heard 3 times

The boy who cried wolf was only helped twice

And no these calls are not practical jokes

they are screams of Ragnarok

Coming to claim souls

But this Armageddon is man made

Fired from the barrel of a Colt

Racing to the finish line

And no this wolf is not imaginary

Instead he is the monster made from society

Instead he is a victim of online extremism

Instead he was suffering from mental health issues

50 dead

53 injured

Death tallies still increasing

Which statistic which issue do we address

The murder or the monster

And can they be differentiated

They say this lone wolf wasn't packless

Pledged allegiance to ISIS

Investigated twice and

he still obtained an assault style rifle legally

Even if ISIS wasn't there

this lone wolf wasn't alone

Lieutenant Governor of Texas tweeted

NRA protected

How many times does the same razor cut society till it dulls

The same feelings of anger no longer uproar

Just commonplace

The 2nd ammendment is a right we've granted

But limitation is met with intimidation

And soon the guns fired will have no target

for everyone will be dead

Lone wolf attackers are situations we can't stop

Yet 2 times

Omar mateen was Investigated by the FBI

And still legally buys a home wrecker

A life stopper

A death bringer

Opens fire on a club

Victims hide

texting goodbye to family members they'll never see again

Apologizing for a mistake they never made

Apologizing for being them self in the land of the free

Because guns right and gun violence

Are a freedom all their own

Lone wolf attackers are situations we can't stop

Fact

Because in our society

there is no lone wolf

Whether its the captured pre

Or the invisible and powerful

they never stand alone

Lone wolf attackers are situations we can't stop

And gun lobbies, religious kamizake, and the next wave of Nazis

Mean they never truly stand alone

In my room on a white door

There is a floor length mirror

I stand and stare for hours

Looking at its reflections

Looking at my reflection in the glass

I see my blemishes my flaws

My weight my skin my bones

I see the scars that I have bled for

My mind and my body another tally

taken

By the man above below inside of me

In middle school I was always skinny boy

Anorexic and pathetic

They told me I need help and therapy

Well sometimes the pills are a lie

They write you biography on prescription pads

I won’t accept another Prozac morning

They tell you all the side effects

Except the inner chaos

I’m not depressed

I have a floor length mirror and a scale in the bathroom 

That promise me other wise

The pain is seductive beautiful and tragic

I stare upon the skin that I have marred

At the pain I bring to someone else

Because I am not myself I’m an observer in the body of a wanderer

A scientist who experiments on himself

Sorry I’m not considered obese

Sorry I can not believe

Don’t tell me these problems

Are insignificant

The quiter you hear them

Doesn’t make them less important

I could scream loud from my skin

Project the pain into the open

I pray for a cave to provide a single echo

This poem is an echo of the things that I have said and felt and heard

Is a chorus of a thousand bleeding lines

Going to be big enough

If I line my arms and mind with these scars

Can I finally be considered someone who hurts like anyone else 

Am I not a human with pain and suffering

Are we not all people in pain and suffering 

Newflash for you

I’m homosapien

We’re siblings in arms against

A standard of nofmalcy 

No matter your skin

Or your notoriety

I don’t need to rhyme

to tell you I’m important

It’s not as simple

As I’m fine or I’m broken

I’m cracked and I’m torn

I’m the doll of 7 year old girl

Ive been through the washer and fought the war

Against my own skin

Against the whole world

This poem is long

As are the turbulent seas

Those who don’t have a boat to cross them

Or another human to tell them they matter

So many girls and boys stand at that shore

Who want to feel normal

As they starve and vomit

To try to relate

To understand what skinny is even if their size 0

Your waist could be 20 inches or 45 for that

But it really doesnt matter

That’s not what counts

We can not define someone on numbers

They don’t represent the person who lives them

So why do we continue to label anyone

They tell you beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Well then isn’t ugliness

Everyone should feel pretty

But they get to decide

It isn’t up for debate

And its not your place to them to lose weight or eat more

We let people shame us for too many things

We must stand together and stop the bullying

It isn’t healthy to starve or throw up

But it isn’t helping to push and poke them on a journey to recovery

You must first love yourself as you see it

And a there is nothing better than a lighthouse at that far away shore to guide you

So be a friend

Love them how they are

But don’t pretend to care

Because they may die from how they eat or dont

You don’t realize the trauma until it is you

For those who do

Save them from the world we know

Protect them from the insults and jealously that is adolescence

Be there shelter from the bombs that collide with their minds

And raise them above the people who dig at them trying to put them 6 feet under

Don’t tell someone who starved 

that they are pretty and perfect in the standards of society

Don’t tell someone who is overweight

that they should diet and try to save themselves

Don’t body shame

Don’t body shape

don’t body sculpt

Someone else Because it’s their clay to mold

And its their body to love

I was never perfect to the standards

And that should be ok

I have a floor length mirror

Hung in my room

I see my body in it’s entirety

But the question is if you do