I am tired.
My head is nodding forward and back
Off into a land of dreams,
Or maybe into a land of nothing.
But not because the history teacher
Is going into a lecture I find
Extremely unimportant
Because the entire class of sixteen and seventeen year olds
Has corrected her five hundred times,
Including the stoners and the morons, thank you very much.
Not because, I a sixteen year old, who is still very ignorant of the world,
And the lessons it has to teach me,
Finds it ridiculous that I have corrected this woman at least five times a day.
No. Not because of that.

I am tired.
But not in the way most of the teenagers in this school are tired.
I am not slouched over my desk, cheek imprinted with jewelry
Like the girl who was up until two in the morning working on her AP Physics project.
No.
I am tired of being tired.
Is what I am.

I am tired of getting phone calls at three in the morning,
Where the first word isn’t a word at all,
But a scream.
I am tired of looking in the mirror
And seeing my mother’s bruised face
Looking back.
I am tired of seeing myself become
That which I promised myself I wouldn’t.

I have witnessed terrible things,
I promised myself would never happen to me.
I watched shadow fingers fade from my mother’s throat
As she forgave the man who put them there.
My eyes absorbed the sight of my best friend
Smashing her fist into a mirror
Only to pick up the broken pieces and make them reusable
As she expressed her pain.

And so I am exhausted.
But not in the way
That I am about to fall to the floor
In a puddle of sleep
And not bother with the pain of the impact.
No.


You spit insults
Like the desperate dote compliments,
And the venom of your words drips
Like hot coffee on a business man’s crotch.
I’ll inhale a hiss, and exhale a curse
But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
The business man’s crotch is still scalded,
No matter how many napkins the very good looking waitress pats on it.

I am exhausted.
Exhausted of the fact that
These scars won’t fade,
My heart, like my skin
Will always remain marred.

Momma attempted to convince me
That broken ties can be knotted back together
With a single tangle of forgiveness.
Forgiveness to a man that doesn’t deserve it.
And I attempted to convince her
That broken ties can’t be knotted back together
Without the rope being weak.

I am exhausted
Exhausted of the anchors and chains
Life has dropped on my shoulders
At the mere age of sixteen.
I am exhausted of having to make choices
No one my age should have to make.
I am exhausted of constantly having to choose
Loving the mother that raised me
Or loving the father that has been there for me.
And I am exhausted of the knowledge
That I could never love both at the same moment.


I am sick
But not in the illness that everybody gets
When the snow falls and noses drip.
Not in the allergies that make eyes itch
And throat’s sore.
No.
I am sick
Of stomach flips every time the phone rings.
I am sick of holding back tears
Because I can’t bear the thought of somebody seeing me as weak.

But most importantly,
I am sick and tired and utterly exhausted
Of what you have made me.

Once upon a time I was strong,
Strong minded and bull-headed
And I wouldn’t have let a single soul
Drag me down.
But then you came along.
You came along and tore me down
Into a person I didn’t recognize.
Into somebody I didn’t want to know.
You came along and made me into a submissive
Mousy, push-over of a woman
That’d bend over backwards
To let you walk all over me.
I am sick,
Because I don’t like what I’ve become.

I don’t like this person you have molded
Me into with hands of stone.
I can’t stand the carpet
You have sewn.
And I can’t lick the heels of your shoes anymore
Because I’m sick of the taste of dirt and rubber.

No.
I can’t.
I refuse to be this person
You have willed me into being.
You want it so badly that you’re stone hands hurt
Because the clay figure you’re attempting to form
Hardens with imperfections.
Imperfections you refuse to tolerate,
But can’t remold.

So this girl of imperfect clay
Is walking away.
Because your heart
Is too similar to your hands.