Atonement

It starts with
one thing, a feeling, just believing,
breathing, focus locked on succeeding
on reaching the buried source of the feeling.
I take a step back, let my heart take the lead
and then it just flows,
rows and rows of black ink on a white page,
memories engaged, inhibitions uncaged,
nothing to dissuade, no secret left safe.

All I've ever wanted was the chance to be
the second chance for someone needing someone else to see
that pain is more than sticks and stones and broken bones;
it's 3:00am, at home, alone, when panic reaches danger zone,
and all you hear are overtones of every doubt you've ever known.

See,
I've got nothing to hide,
I've put twenty thousand words here in front of your eyes,
every bump or bruise encountered, documented in time,
from Misery and through reflections, every verse, every rhyme,
even my crimes. And I'll continue to write.
I will share my every story just in case that I might
give someone light or a reason to fight, maybe I
might never reach that destination, but dammit, I tried.

When I was sixteen, I thought I had a plan,
I raised my voice, never feared to take a stand.
It's funny really, how much has changed since then,
and just how much I truly didn't understand,
I criticized feeble men, lost more than one of my best friends,
some victim to my harsh demands and some I deemed mannequins.

Man, I can't deny, I'm a hypocrite.
So fake some days, I feel like a counterfeit.
I've spent the last ten years trying to blend into the crowd
Can't be too loud, take credit but don't seem to proud,
look at me, now.

That's why I write what I am feeling,
my self therapy, but left in a form so revealing,
no self preservation but the world can be so fleeting
that I don't really mind the thought of strangers reading.

Just think about it. When we're gone, what have we left?
At the ending of a chapter, we all so easily forget
the tiny details that captivated, only for the moment.
We turn the page and the memories, they fade,
so this is my atonement.

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"Things aren't the way they were before, you wouldn't even recognize me anymore. Not that you knew me back then but it all comes back to me in the end." -- Linkin Park