my tribe was jumping from buildings we made out of salt water and shoelaces, we were
staying up late just to burn down the candles we bought for
each other, we were flicking the fire
maybe hoping, just a little that we would burn our fingertips
we painted tragic landscapes and we painted our landscapes
tragic and we climbed into them like portals in the back of
a musty closet, bring us to a more interesting life and
we crossed our fingers and we crossed our hearts and we would never tell a soul but we
hoped to die and we sat on our floors
and sometimes we'd lay on them and they would be warm
and we would press our cheeks to the ground until
our mothers told us to get up, stand up
and some of us fell and we tried to pick those ones up and
like disease it was spreading our minds they were infected
one girl used a blade on her wrist because she
was cleaning her room like her mother would ask and
she saw it right there in a box on her closer and she thought
why not do it and we hated her, but we didn't know why
and we walked on the street and we sat on that yellow
line (is there a name for that line, if not there should be)
and we made paper buildings out of old
homework and we burned them with matches we
pulled out from behind our ears and we knew it was
stupid but we also knew it was important, we were important
but we hid that from view
don't invalidate my feelings we screamed at our mothers
but we knew in bed later that night we would smile
and we were right when we said that we were sad
but we were wrong when we thought we were free