Quiet Kid In The Static

Quiet Kid In The noise
Every crowded room feels like a platform where the train forgot to stop
Every loud mouth chewing all the air gets handed gold stars for breathing right
My ID never finds its way into the roll call
just a smudge on the bottom of a page they never bother to read
I talk and it falls through the floorboards
like I nailed my own tongue to the silence that feeds

Every time I light a match in my chest I get told to keep it down
people working, people sleeping
But no one notices the quiet kid in the noise who has spent his whole life keeping.
You clap them on the shoulder, say they saved you
while I stitch your torn spine every time your sky caves in again
I bend myself into strange positions just to hold your weight
then watch you praise strangers and call them your closest friends

You want my thoughts, my words, my fire
but only when your bright crowd ghosts you and you need a backstage light
Soon as you feel steady you walk past me like I am last week’s trash left out in the rain overnight
I swallow down comment after comment till my throat feels lined with broken glass and swallowed screws
Wondering how many times I got erased from the story before I stopped being news.

I am not your quiet kid in the noise any longer
I am the storm you turned your back on till it cracked your floor
I am the pulse you kept ignoring till your own cold chest started begging for a knock at the door
You wanted my patience, my silence
my kindness packaged neat and safe and small
But I am done being wallpaper in your miracle story
I am peeling out of the plaster and ripping down your hall.

They say speak up, then talk over me
turn my thunder into background hiss behind their favorite track
They love the broken genius when it’s tragic and distant but they never stop to ask why the pain is back
I could scream till my lungs tear
but they only hear weather
swear I’m just mumbling another complaint
But I have held your secrets, buried your disasters

played the saint while you painted yourself the saint
Tonight I’m done being the ghost note under your chorus
done being shoved back on the shelf
I am pulling every pin out of my tongue till the fire finally measures up to what I have been hiding from my self.
All those years I hung my needs on a hook by the door just to make more room for your endless cries
Now I watch you play misunderstood hero for crowds that only know the polished version of your lies
You painted my steady hands as plain and boring while you broke every glass in reach for a louder sound

But when the cuts got deep you came crawling to my corner
leaving a trail of red across the ground
You never saw the way my own hands trembled while I bandaged you up again and again
You only saw a service line and a soft voice saying sure
drop your pain right in.

So keep your easy praise and your late apologies written on air with disappearing ink
I am walking out with every part of me you never bothered to see
sharper than you think.