Because It Hurts to be Real

I feel the need to write

To sort out in my head what is right

Is it right to this in love?

To have finally met the girl I’ve dreamt of?

The reason I’m writing

Is because I feel the need

To hurt myself and make me bleed

I cut myself so I can feel

All that it is that makes me real

I feel kind of crazy now

I don’t know why, I don’t know how

I wish this feeling would go away

Quit messing with my awesome day!

Why is it that I cut even when I don’t “feel the need”?

What is it inside me that drives me to bleed?

I kept telling myself all day: “This feeling will go away.”

But it never goes away

It only rests a while

And it makes it hard for me to smile.

To feel this way will make others hurt, too.

But that is not what I mean to do.

I only mean to hurt me,

The others, they don’t see:

All the pain

All the times I’ve never danced in the rain

All the times I’ve cried and bled

Because of what others have said.

There will always be this hole I’ve made

It is filled only with the kiss of the blade.

I need to find a place where I can be free,

A place where it’s ok if I go crazy.

That place is inside her arms

Where I’m kept from every harm.

She even saves me from myself,

She makes me feel like I am wealth.

But even she can’t fill the void

Every time I become annoyed

With simple, stupid everyday life.

I only want to be her wife.

The reason that I have to bring

All this hurt to me, is because it hurts to feel anything.

I feel as if I am a piece of raw meat,

Exposed, I walk through these dirty streets.

I am an open wound, everything stings…

The pain inside makes my ears ring.

Even the good hurts to feel,

Because it hurts to be real.

Heather L. Johnson

November 2002