It happens all at once.

Everything is happening all at once. It always happens like this. Self-love, and self-hate. Art, and the desire to speak your mind, to actually speak your mind and say things. It comes with the desire to be reckless, to be impulsive, to feel that for one night, behind one microphone you can say whatever the fuck you want to say at that exact second. That no one will stop being your friend because of it, that you will move on and grow. That there will be no consequences.

Truth is, we are taught when we're kids, "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it at all."

When you say things there are consequences. Good ones and bad ones. You can't just walk into the United Nations and say, "Stephen Harper is a patriarchal sack of shit."

I would laugh at the angry feminists who say that. I could say the same thing in sharper words, better articulated. Although, sometimes you just have the feeling to say shit as you feel it. Who am I to critisize expression in its various forms?

One of the things that drives me to cutting the most is the feeling that I can't say what I want to say, or what I have to say. Sometimes I say ridiculous things my mother would crucify me for. Actually, everything I want to say that means something to me, my mother would kill me for saying.

I wrote down what I want to say. And I am bursting at the seams to say it. If I cut myself, I know I will be able to say something else. I could rip out the passion that I have for it. Shove some poem out of my hands that I don't really feel. A poem I could pretend to feel enough to share for the sake of sharing.

I don't want to share a poem I don't feel. The only reason you write slam poetry is to fucking feel something, to say something you genuinely feel. I feel this, even if the words mean nothing. I feel this.

I feel this.

Do I deny myself the ability to say something? Do I say, "Fuck it, lets just operate this poem out of your body. Let's lock the door and get this poem like a tumor out of your body through the veins on your legs."

Is this better than hurting someone else? Because you know, you're not the most fucking subtle person in the world.

This is why bus rides and walks were invented.