By Marshae Nickelberry

Society’s conception was a “mis”, yet we raised it well
Holding on to the image of perfection,
innocent suckling; sucking the innoncence of our spirits without detection
Nursed to kill, swaddled to ravage the mind that harbors it magnifying its projection
too blind with comfort, and too inclined with seeing rejection
it is the depths of our minds that we never tell
Take the secret to the grave
Even if the grave has me buried in a living hell
Decaying daily in our own lives, too cowardly to just give in
To Death, if by death we mean to surrender–
The thoughts that sear our minds with the piercing screams they confess:
These thoughts if released are the  very things that could potentially end us
they are the very things if released we would finally be free to allow restoration to mend us
Speaking so loudly in our minds, that we find ourselves unrest
wrestling through the night constantly contemplating just putting ourselves to rest
Braveheart has been caged behind bars of deceit, Braveheart was told that it could never be free and Braveheart believed, so Braveheart remained
Braveheart never asked the ears of truth, so behind the sentence of fictionality, was braveheart sustained
Cut the riddles and speak the truth if you refuse to seek it on your own
Root the cracks that darkness has sown
Run from the enticing thought of being able to think alone
Confining yourself in corners, only to realize you are not alone
Facing personas of torment crowding your mind that you no longer own
A headspace shared with the friendliest enemies
It is no one that we can trust, except the ones that attract us to ruin in combustion
But outside of us, ears have rushed to show themselves worthy to be trusted
And we choose instead to trust and confide in the very thoughts that hate us
That shower us with love, only to keep us talking
Talking to nothing but addition, adding more UNSPOKEN additions, as we keep the problem assimilated to the dramatization of our condition
We are resolutions unsolved, with a control center uncontrolled
Free to roam with decadence as long as our structure never unfolds
the body is well but the mind is not
Choosing to stay in sickness, leaves the battle unfought
Somehow we are convinced by the example of society’s misconception
that not speaking about our issues is the greater election
The very words that we choose not to speak for fear of their rise
Are the very things that speak to us and self handly attribute to our demise
A smooth-talking coated voice sings the shrillest melody that if you lay here and commune with me,
I’ll grow larger in our conversation– fueled by your defeat
I’ll multiply and overpower your power to leave
Generation of shadows, covered in your own self inflicted shade
Even if life did have a hand, it was in your own bed of lies that every night you shamelessly laid
But as one who overcame, I beseech you to let me stir you from your internal grave
May I borrow you from your own mind, even if it means letting you into mine
Only to breathe reality into your eyes, before you teeter off your tightly roped lines

There is a disease that has surrounded me,
And I find myself grappling to stay free
Yet in grappling for those around me
I feel it taint the hearts of purity that I once relished to see
I see it take the heart of liberty ripped right from underneath their feet
I see myself caving with the overwhelming oppression and feeling of defeat
I feel the ringing of salvation to hearts too stubborn to believe
That outside of their mental prisons, the shackles actually break free
With the pungent air of reality they are bound in chains
A parading masquerading definition of lies
Search the index of their mind you’ll see the outline of an individual undefined
Consuming each day the pretentiousness of their own words
Only agitating the ones that they leave unheard
A silent slow killer is the silence of your own pain
Your own shame, you mute yourself to avoid being defamed
You leave yourself hiding behind the excuses you’ve made
a cycle of self damnation, you are selfish with taking on the blame
The ones to fear the most, are the ones that self-ruin for their own gain
As long as no one recognizes their dangerous game
that they play
in convincing the world that everything is okay
Not realizing that they are not the only ones who have ever felt this way
but silence keeps them ignorant, to the healing that comes from the words we refuse to say
Focus on the magnitude of the internal death of a child,
a creature, a being who has lost their sanity
to the insanity of leaving things the same
The obvious thing would be to free yourself to the uncomfortable ways of change
still weakened to traumatization, to tormentation, to condemnation, to the aspect of being too proud
to admit the thoughts that have them caving to silence for crying out loud
I’m crying out loud
Because my own thoughts oppress me, regress me, transgressed to keep me depressed
with the burden of my generation laying in their own mess
Unable to face the idea of getting up again
The issues of missteps have taken a hold of their vision
Graveling in the mistakes, pushing away the hand of revision
of freedom, to live again and to be evicted out of their heads
To take the superficiality of their thoughts, and embrace the fresh air of space instead
Space to try and make amends, to stand and defend, their right to fight fear and win
Bitter with unforgiveness, as unforgiveness begets more friends
finds company with sickness, pain, isolation, jealousy, and rage
we became obscene, unhealthy with the obesity of our own festering collections
we have collected fragments of injections all that combine, to the billowing lies waiting to cut the cord on our lives. Why call it our lives when this life is not even mine
We endorsed the conception of society’s mistake
Induced to carry the travails of its numbing aches
we’ve become puppets to the very things we seek the most to hide
Because somehow silence is better than living without the loudness of our minds