Break

I don't know when my hands

Became a resting bay for broken people

But I have suffered too many cuts

And open wounds to keep doing this

I don't know when I became the nurse

To people who didn't want to be nursed

I don't know when I started offering my body as shelter

For those people who just needed a pit stop

That they didn't come here to be healed

To be fixed or to love or to be loved

They came for a break

For their humanity to be validated

I don't know when I started cleaning all wounds

Stitching them up and whispering prayers

So that these scars would heal

I don't know when I started offering the inside of my ribs

By splitting my chest open

And allowing people to live inside of them

While they drop pieces of their broken glass

All over my insides, instead of me having water inside of me

It became other people's pain and blood

And I started to breathe out hot air

In a form of pain that isn't even my own

I turned myself into the protector of those

Who don't want protection, they just want to break

My love to them was a sticker

It was a moment

A fleeting instant that reminded them

That they are worthy of some type of love

That my arms have become tired

And my shoulders have sunk from carrying

Worn our bodies to be in recovery mode

That I'm tired of loving people so hard that I no longer even like myself

I'm tired of mothering a generation of people

Who have their own mothers

Of offering myself, an exchange for validation and visibility to be seen

Sometimes your purpose is to serve the world with honesty

Sometimes your purpose starts by being able to deliver

Everything you are giving to the world for free to yourself

And that is hard because no one wants people to be selfish

We want people to be selfless

We want people to be empty, have no sense of self

So that they can give everything that they are

And become nothing but a shell

That we become skeletons tattooed

With other people's stories and our hollow bones

Are dancing grounds for people trying to find their footing

No one wants you to be self full

No one wants your glass full

No wants you fully watered and fully seeded

They want you half ass so they can take some

And tell you good job for offering what little you have

But when they're good and heal

Nobody looks back because we're told to never look back

To keep moving forward

No matter what you've left behind, it's behind, right?

I don't know when my hands

Became a resting bay in hospitals for broken people

I don't know when I've offered my bones

And their hollowness to be a home for somebody

Who's just trying to find their footing

I don't know when I've offered my skin and my flesh

For people to dig their teeth into

So they can eliminate the rage they feel

By drawing blood out of my skin

And me offering myself as a place

For all their pain and rage to go into

And people wonder why now I'm silent

Because I am drowning in others voices

I am drowned in others screams and I am heavy

With the weight of their bodies

And they found the glow in my eyes

And robbed me of it with no thank you in exchange

I don't know when I became that person

That convinced myself that my serving of people

And serving myself to people that will feast on my life flesh

And say, well, you offered, it became my existence

But I'm retiring that job

Because I will feed me, heal me, take care of me

And my corpse will not be your home

That will be my children's thrones and they will thrive in them

You are an invited guest that now has been given an eviction letter

That I don't need your body here to feel complete anymore

That I have too many scars and my bones ache

And my knees hurt, and I am all prayed out for you

And it's your time to go and it's time to learn to pray for you

And get on your feet and use your own back

And stand straight without me because you can do that

You will do that. I don't know when, but I know when it will end