Inside

To know what it’s like to be me,
You have to understand what it’s like to live inside a brain
Where both sides are at war with each other.
Where everything makes sense and nothing is real.
Where what you think is how you feel,
And what you feel is nothing you know.
Where the sun can rain on you
And the moon shines too bright sometimes
And the stars will hold your hand.
But then they let go and tease you,
Chanting “You can‘t reach” over and over again
Until the calls ring in your ears.
Where rivers flow wild with arsenic
And the sky is an atomic orange,
And sometimes if you’re tired and worn you can sit under a cherry blossom tree
And make a pallet of flowers and sleep soundly.
To know what it’s like to be me, you have to understand that this is all real inside my head, and real outside my head.
But only on paper, at the end of my fingertips, in my head.