They tell me to speak my mind and never hold back.

Yet when my thoughts start to unravel themselves and roll off my tongue, I’m told to hold it.

I was always taught to hold respects hand and walk with it.

But is there a time where I can draw the line and finally speak my piece?

Where I can take off the cap of my bottled up thoughts and not be self-conscious about the looks I’ll get afterwards.

Show my anger through a cuss word or two instead of

Mother loving, fork, schist, and dang it.

Without getting a brutalized death stare from my parents.

See, I’m always being censored.

Even more so than the radio.

See, they say speak your mind but it’s mute.

So I write it out in hopes to keep my voice alive.

Sometimes my mindless vocabulary may seem a little ghetto,

Or illiterate, or profane, or even a little country; nut my voice is still mine.

And I won’t stand in the shadows of a bleep, keeping my silence to avoid obscure faces.

I will no longer hold in my thoughts waiting for the day that I shatter into pieces

Glittering the floor as a remembrance of what I once was.

I open my mouth with means to talk as the awkward silence emerges with all eyes on me.

But nothing comes out because my vocal chords have been stored on layaway.

My life changing words have been boxed up in the attic because they may be useful at a “later date”

Well I’m going to reinvent the calendar so that day is today.

I’m dusting off my voice box and preparing it for use.

So please let go of my tongue, because I have something to say.