I never lived

I started living yesterday

Standing in the skin of my truth

I felt bruises on my freedom surfacing

And the man breaking out of the boy I was

I know, I can’t be everything to everyone, yet

Maybe be myself first so I’d know how to be here

To give love and kindness and be tears for love

Here I stand, on this crossroad

Between a boy and a man I must become

Overdosed with my inner character’s voices

Relentless and scratching love from a distant

Nerves hustling before my own tiny whispers

Opening my mouth to ooze my lot of secrets

To an open audience hungry to hear my story

Begging with their eyes and ears, breathing, waiting

My lips leaking too many secrets they’ve kept forever

Standing on the skin of my truth, unashamed

Oozing everything, unmasked

So I started living yesterday

After I allowed this boy breathe