The Cards

Sometimes everything
Life
Is too much for one person
To handle
Do you ever give in?
Fold up?
Let go?
Just break down completely
No holding back?
Sometimes life
Just being alive
Day-to-day
Is too complicated
Sometimes bad days only get worse
Sometimes getting up in the morning
Is the hardest thing
In the world
You wake up
And you think
That today
Is going to be just like yesterday
And the day before that
And the day before that
You wake up
Feeling trapped
And you think
That maybe
If you snuggle back up under the blanket
If you just hide from the world all day
Whether it be under the blanket
Or under that fake-ass mask
Maybe
Tomorrow will be different
And then you’re always hurt
Cuz it never is
Well, maybe hiding
Isn’t working for you
Anymore
Maybe it never was
And you were lying to yourself
This whole time
A lot of us get to the point
We get so low
That we wonder
What we ever did
To deserve
This hand we were dealt
And we get sucked under
By the quagmire
Of helplessness and self-pity
And we look for saviors
Usually through lovers
And then we’re always hurt
When the relationship falls apart
Well, that’s because you’re falling apart
Trying to hide the fact
That you’re crying on the inside
Every time you laugh or smile on the outside
You’re so broken inside
That I’m surprised
You don’t rattle when you walk
And when you stop blaming your life on them
Whoever they may be
When you finally realize that you
Are your biggest problem
You think there’s nothing you can do to stop it
Nothing you can do to save yourself from yourself
Well, you’re wrong
We were all born into our lives
Into our worlds
Arbitrarily
We were all dealt these unfair hands
But you’re forgetting
The most important rule to this game
A new round begins each day
Every time you open your eyes
There are new cards before you
Society lies
When it tells you that you’re limited
That you began to die
The very moment you were born
That you’re trapped somewhere between
Luck and destiny
Society lies
When it says
You aren’t
You can’t
There’s no chance in hell
That you’re gonna make it
Cuz we design our destinies
And constantly reconstruct our realities
Life doesn’t have to be hell
So that means you have a chance
So no longer limit yourself
To society’s expectations
You’re better than that
You have the strength
And the courage
To break through the brambles
And follow a path less traveled
To defy all expectations
And to make each day
Your own creation
You have the power
To take a stand
To take a leap
And make a change
No more hiding beneath blankets and masks
No more playing pretend
You are above their game
And sometimes
You’ll still feel alone
And you’ll still feel a touch
Of that icy pain
Because a wound is a wound
And you are still broken
Wounded
The pain will still be there
It will always hurt
But on this higher plane
Now that you’re no longer a pawn in society’s game
Your wounds can be examined
Analyzed
And patched back up
You can fix yourself
So that you don’t rattle anymore
But the scar will always be there
To show that you have lived
You have played that game
To remind you of the past
And where you’ve been
And to serve as fuel for the future
Fuel for those hard times
When it’s tempting to just give in
Fold up
Let go
Just break down completely
No holding back
Let life get the best of you
If I have taught you nothing else
Remember this:
You deserve the best of you
Remind yourself of that every morning
As you decide how to play
The cards of today.