Strike me down
with your beating wings
and remind me what it's like
to feel things

I will not cower
I want for no shield
I am open like a wound
To replace the fragments of myself with you
I will bear the scars of the fool

Every moment leaden
Once again, we dance
together in slow motion

Once again, the ache returns
Of precarious devotion
Every moment leaden

Strike me down
with your beating wings
and remind me what it's like
to feel things

I will not cower
I want for no shield
I am open like a wound
To replace the fragments of myself with you
I will bear the scars of the fool

With faraway eyes
And solemn brow
Climb on top
And push your weight down
Place your hand
Over my mouth
And stop the words
From coming out

Leave me in a cage
My foot on a tether
And only return
To pluck out all my feathers

One by one
Have you collected enough?
One by one
Are you done playing rough?
This hurts too much to be love.

How am I represented
when I have no control?
How is this a platform
when you manipulate my words?

It's not 'us versus them'
It's not 'girls versus boys'
It's not either / or
This isn't a war

Headline constructed
To be a divisive
As fucking possible
And completely detached
From the rest of the desperate click-bait article

We are used as fodder
To generate comments
Because the presence of a woman
Is apparently reactive

FUCK OFF.

I'm sick of being a stick for all the misogynistic bears you poke.

A worm on the hook of the press
Writhing in distress
Your hate is their success

I am merely the red flag
To your fanbase of bulls
I remain powerless

I am sick of being the target of the abuse you try to provoke

Headline constructed
To be a divisive
As fucking possible
And completely detached
From the rest of the desperate click-bait article

We are used as fodder
To generate comments
Because the presence of a woman
Still causes massive arguments

FUCK OFF

I'm sick of being a stick for all the misogynistic bears you poke.

A worm on the hook of the press
Writhing in distress
Your hate is their success

I am merely the red flag
To your fanbase of bulls
I remain powerless

I am sick of being the target of the abuse you try to provoke

One day you will write about us
And it won't be dismissed as 'virtue signaling'
And the piece won't be designed
With generating comments in mind
It won't be reactive
It won't be a gender war
One day, when I'm represented
I will have control.

Throw your heart away
It's going to get broken anyway
Feel the pain, just feel the pain.

I dive headfirst
into pitch black skies
with reckless abandon
and weary battle cries.
Careless and loveless
want to lay down and die
Nothing inside
but a dream of you tonight.

And you bang on the crumbling wall of my mind
I am perched on the end of your knife
I am lost on the outskirts of your life.

Just feel the pain in the name of love
Just fill the soil in the grave of love

I dive headfirst
into pitch black skies
with reckless abandon
and weary battle cries.
Careless and loveless
want to lay down and die
Nothing inside
but a dream of you tonight.

And you bang on the crumbling wall of my mind
I am perched on the end of your knife
I am lost on the outskirts of your life.

The pieces will never come back together
and your heart will never truly mend
Trapped in a computer game
I just keep dying
And continuing again.

Days without eating
Days without sleeping
Days without speaking

The nights are the hardest
When the voices are the loudest

Days without eating
Days without sleeping
Days without speaking

Don't tell me it's 'okay to not be okay'
then wince at everything I say

Don't act like a confidant
if you're just going to get impatient
and make patronizing suggestions
It's not my life that's the problem
It's me.

Days without eating
Days without sleeping
Days without speaking

If I could fix it like a broken limb, I would.
If I could stop these thoughts and start again, I would.
I would leap at the chance
But the chance: it does not exist
Some illnesses – they just have no fix.
Listen to someone without judgment.

I see you all
Beyond this pain
But I remain trapped
With the monsters in my brain
Please someone breakthrough this silent restraint

Wish I could write from the heart
and tell you what's wrong
and put this gnawing into words

But the path is blocked
by a wall of glass
I scream: and it just bounces back

I waste away
as I wait and wait
just to smile again.

So desperate for help
that nothing helps
I fail when I try to be my old self

How do I fix it?
How do I get better?
Does anybody have an answer?

I'm sick of feeling like a burden
I'm sick of having no control

I'm sick of always needing help
I'm sick of being afraid of myself

They say, they say
You will smile again
But it's not in the same way
Not with the same joyful abandon
There will be a barrier between your lips and your eyes
And you'll wonder if they notice, the light that's fading over time.

You will smile again
as you try to convince yourself it's real
You will keep forcing it
Until forcing it is all you remember how to feel

You will smile again
For the sake of them
It's just selflessness and depression
Going hand in hand again.

Is this too much?
Is this not enough?
If I don't cover up
does that make it my fault?

You have painted me
so the clothes I am wearing
speak louder
than the things I am saying.

And the only thing I can be
is a prude or a whore
“seeking attention”
and nothing more.

Showing flesh, showing flesh
does not remove dignity
Showing flesh, showing flesh,
does not invalidate me.

Why are we still being punished just for having a body?
Why are we still being judged solely on our clothing?

Showing flesh does not deserve shaming
Showing flesh does not warrant blaming

Why the hell must you ask what the victim was wearing?

Why are our bodies seen as a bad thing?
To be locked away
in a misconception of purity.

To be hidden like a guilty secret

This is my skin
This is the vessel I exist in
It is not a sin
My body is not a sin!

Reduced to an image
on a daily basis
Reduced to an image
like we have nothing else to give
Reduced to an image
on a daily basis
Reduced to an image
like there is nothing else of worth.

I am not your trophy
I am more than my body

Not here to be your pretty face
I am worth more than your gaze
I do not owe you beauty
Let me be a human being

This shit needs to stop
Acknowledge them beyond their looks

Physical beauty isn't currency
I am not more valuable if I am pretty

Not here to be your fantasy
I am not a prize to be won
All these shallow things you treasure
One day they will all be gone

Physical beauty isn't currency
I am not more valuable if I am pretty

Does it even matter if we are wise?
Do you listen when we speak our minds?
Does it matter how hard we try?
Do you hear us when we cry...

WE DO NOT WANT TO BE OBJECTIFIED.

Need to change the way we talk about girls
Stop measuring them on such shallow terms
Stop diminishing them to physical conquests
Stop viewing them as empty objects.

Stop fucking rating us
Stop fucking hating us
This isn't a pageant
And it isn't a compliment
To receive such shallow judgment.

Once impossible
to reignite
now I stand before the spark
feeling the warmth
seeing the light
watching it mirror
within your eyes
I burn this flame
for you so bright

So quiet, yet intensive.

I burn this flame for you
when all hope remains elusive
Even in the times
when I have nothing left to give
I will always promise this:

For you I would die.
For you I will live.

For you I would die.
For you I will live.