I have included a voice recording for you guys. I highly recommend listening to it while reading along. I think this poem was supposed to be heard rather than just read. I hope you enjoy, take something away from it, and don't take it literally but rather the "big picture."

Feel free to leave comments, questions, etc. I am always excited about a discussion!

You just

read those self-help books that strip you

of reality, they work for a few months

But they send you to a gallery of Instagram Pictures

and these perfect little bedrooms

with framed quotes on the wall

that make mushrooms out of your mind,

you're seeing stars and lights,

they opened up the flood gates

Wait.

It's just a matter of time before

they grab all your dimes and make a run to the next

project they've kept hidden under their sleeve-

but you won't leave that self help book in its box.

You read those pages like a starved maniac, sift through

these words that seem so right until they leave you

with a clean kitchen In a magazine house and

these ideas of how to be the right kind of wife.

It's so true there's a strike in the heart of it all.

You fall, we all fall, it's a free for all in this war-zone

you have going on in your head,

they say make the bed every day

but you can get dust mites that way and I see

you're supposed to get that gym membership-

the one with the girls in the perfect outfits and

Starbucks cards attached to their hips. You have been given

this idea of who and what you should be

just close the book, turn off the phone,

let your eyes wander,

goddamnit just SEE.