Growing up, people always asked me,

What do you want to be?

This question always seemed unfair,

because I had to pick out everything from

My job to my wife to the way I styled my hair.

Not only did I have to plan everything out,

but my response had to satisfy the people that

were causing me this stress.

The ones that made me feel this urge

to be better than the rest.

But when you constantly have to put on a mask,

You begin to count the days by the flasks

you drink or the times you get beat

by your alcoholic father whose image

you are slowly recreating even though

you spend your whole life hating

the monster that you know oh so well.

You start to lose all sense of who you are 

as you get called things like pathetic,

worthless or possibly worst of all: ungrateful.

Because they don't know just how much

you go through with a full day at school, running from the bullies,

only to return home to get beat by your father, 

neglected by your mother,

all the while trying to raise a younger sister and protect her.

How ungrateful can you be when all you try to do is make something 

of the cards you were dealt?

They call you these things, making you feel like a waste of space,

without coming close to how you felt

when everyone around you tries to bury you in the ground,

so that the only thing you can do now,

is put on a mask and fake a smile,

telling yourself its just for a little while

longer until the pain subsides

from the bruises on your sides

that you have to hide

because inside

you're just a broken toy that's too broken to try

to smile anymore and just wants to die,

wondering why God, why

did this happen to me when I'm 

just trying not to get wasted anymore.

Just trying to get over those addictions and barriers

of alcoholism and the depression I feel here

so that if my sister falls I can carry her 

away from the terrible home life we share,

but no one else seems to care

about two dying kids living in a town

full of people who would all rather drown

than admit their own problems.

How ungrateful can I be?

The real question is: 

How ungrateful do you make me feel?

You, who make me self harm everyday

so that I can forget hearing you say,

"Stop whining,"

because you don't know I'm trying 

not to give up.

So to answer their questions,

I want to be a hero when I grow up.

I want to be the one to protect my sister when she's hurt,

I want to be someone who doesn't feel the need to go get wasted or high

trying to forget the reason why I live and breathe at all,

I want to be a hero, not just a broken toy.