Deciding What To Say To My Therapist

Ive imagines this conversation so many times that my own brain gets annoyed by it

Because I can never find the write words or maybe I just don't want to

I wonder if I should start with "you know when people say when life gives you lemons just make lemonade?"

Yeah well I such at making lemonade

Or maybe I should tell them how when I do make lemonade there's never enough

How at the rim of every glass of lemonade I see the print of my mothers lipstick

And then there's my sadness

My sadness

The one where I oftem mistake it as being tired or "I should just get the large meal"

Or how everytime I get really sad I can bcome an actor 

How with every second of the day I hear my mom asking "are you sad again?" like a broken record

Like it was a new bill to pay

Or also when I see her smile I see myself  between her teeth

And she still uses a toothpick

And when Im about to leave the house she asks "you're going out like that?"

And its funny because the voice inside my head replies "yeah that's what I said."

You see doctor, when I lay down on my bed looking at my door I see the ghost of my brother the moment he yelles at me for when I got sexually assulted

Maybe that's when I should've started writing this poem

When I see the boy who assulted me walking own the hallways of my school

That scene plays over and over and over again grabbing my lungs in its grasp and punches my heart to go faster

To remind me, as a punishment

You know some people say that my brother is a lot like my dad

"Like father like son" they say

When I came to my dad with my heart filled with love talking about a boy

He said "girls are so easy"

"All you have to do is talk sweet in there ear and it's love"

And my mother stode aside of that

As if it was true

But what if the therapist says to relax and light up a candle?

When I light a candle I remeber the night of my 16th birthday and not because of the movie Sixteen Candles

I looked at that candle as my last motivation to not give up my heart of hope

Trying to keep my tears from burning it out

In the black box of my room I could only remember the taste of the wet fruit cake 

I don't know why I get so sad on my birthday

For my 15th I cut my wrist 15 times like tick marks you leave in jail

And there are still pictures all over the house of me that

With the beautiful smile I've been practicing so long to perfect

Sometimes I think my parents are possessed because the thought of me bringing a black boy home scares them more than me not going to college

While I look to the side and see my brother holding his girlfriends hand 

Like a child looking at the toy they can't get through a window 

And also I think Im going deaf because when my parents say hi to my brother they're are louder

Wearing there smiles like they wear the best outfit for the best occasion

But when I come around It's unclear

I should also mention that I wrote this instead of eating

At the moments I feel good with my skin glowing and my teeth can't hide behind my smile

My confidence comes around like an old friend visiting

I still confuse confidence with anger

I don't know If there's a difference

There are nights when my anxiety takes over the same day to the point where I look at my hands wondering If Im even alive

But the moments of just a few seconds of laughter, or missing him in every wrong moment, or when the sun waks me up every morning telling me to try again

And If it doesn't the moon and the stars listen to everything I have to say

Reminding me that this isn't my last chance

I still can't decide what to say first