Poetry competition CLOSED 11th May 2016 5:28pm
WINNER
TinaLouise
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"depression"

L_one
Lost Thinker
United States
Joined 12th Apr 2016
Forum Posts: 24

Morning comes without the sun
At the seams I come undone
Lost in all the grey of day
Cannot play from where I lay

A song that seems to have no tune
In spring, but only hell's in bloom
This heavy veil that clouds my sight
That brings only the devil's delight

This wasteland that let's nothing grow
An empty vessel from head to toe
These chains that bind me to my mind
A little boy that's left behind

This monster I don't recognize
Within my eyes it multiplies
Shredding all hope I once held
My ending very much compelled

Will I ever paint with another brush
Have the diamonds all been crushed
In this freeze I seem to melt
Such cruel hand that I've been dealt

Silent screams won't leave my head
River of heart my only bed
A walk that leads to this same place
I just can't break this night embrace

L_one
Lost Thinker
United States
Joined 12th Apr 2016
Forum Posts: 24

No Reflection is the title

ViolentlyHappy
Strange Creature
United States
Joined 3rd Feb 2016
Forum Posts: 2

Children fear fictitious monsters that dwell under beds or what may dwell in the closest, obvious byproduct of an overzealous imagination. Some adults still fear what may lurk in the dark but for me, depression is the most horrifying of them all.

Depression would stalk me like an anathemic shadow with covetous eyes, deeply obsessed with something precious that doesn’t belong to it. Cold chills would run down my spine and the hairs on my arm would stand at attention as if some unseen entity were unwantedly caressing me softly with frigid hands. I’d turn to find nothing but my immediate environment but little did I know I was being haunted by an imperceptible nemesis. When it took residence within me and made it’s presence known, it dug deep and cemented its roots into my soul and ensnared my heart with it’s thorny tendrils that squeezed tightly letting me that is is very much a physical ordeal. I knew it had come to possess me the first time I had shed uncontrollable tears of anguish over a litany of constant disappointments.

It tortures me with my own memories, reminding me of questionable decisions i've made and my past failures all the while injecting me with a never ending supply of regret. Sometimes, it even galvanizes me with hope by feeding me a glimpse of an agreeable future free of bondage from it but hope can be a cruel tactic Depression uses to remind me that I belong to it, mind and soul.

When it comes on strong, I feel my resolve fade away like a sand castle meeting a tidal wave that stands very little chance of standing tall in the aftermath. It takes hold of me with it’s grotesque hands pulling me into it’s claustrophobic realm of despair, robbing me of my sense of worth, siphoning every last ounce of pride before retreating to the crevices within the depths of my soul with the remnants of my confidence, leaving me a shadow of my former self, evident when I look in the mirror and all I see is a revenant staring back at me with a hundred yard stare.

Every day is a constant war of attrition with my sense of self because some days I don’t even know who I am anymore. I go from Manic-Depressive-Mondays to I-Hate-Myself-Terribly-Tuesdays all the way to Sucked-a-Big-Box-of-Salty-Dicks-Sundays ---  my mood is entirely dependent if Depression wants to wake up in the morning to vampircally feed on my emotions. Normal days feel like paid vacations, in the sense that they are good while they last despite the fact they pass as fast a New York minute. I desperately try to cling on to how I feel on a normal day as if I were clutching a life preserve in a temperamental sea of misery but more often than not, feeling normal just becomes a distant memory as I sojourn the long desolate road of destitution searching for the next day of reprieve from my unwanted guest.

Every day, even the most minute things can be difficult. The fruits that life has to offer tastes like over ripened apples that crumble in my mouth, leaving a bitter after taste. Moving through my day feels like im wearing a weighted coat of armor on a hot summer day in Georgia, each step I take is more laborious then the last as I struggle to find my place in society. Every day is Halloween for me, I get up every morning and I put on a happy face so other people can feel comfortable, despite me crying on the inside.  I’ve gotten better at it with practice, in comparison, im employing the same concentration a violinist uses to play Concerto in D Major on a violin. I usually prefer wear my misery on my face, which is easier – but people make me feel worse when they ask me what’s wrong as if they have the answer to my problems. What’s worse is when they gave you a blank stare and retort with antiquated statements such as ‘just be happy’ – or ‘you’ll be fine’ or my personal favorite, ‘just get over it’ – as if it was that fucking easy. Sometimes I wonder why people feel like I gave up my right to be left alone just because I set foot in public. So I continue to smile like the legendary fool – Pagliacci, Italian Prince of Clowns, who lived to make those around him happier while he died a little everyday on the inside.

I’ve found that envy of all things is synonymous with depression because I feel it’s vicious sting whenever I interact with people who appear to be genuinely happy. Its even worse when I see groups of happy people being happy together which begs the antediluvian question ‘how the fuck do they do that?’ because all I ever get is more anxiety when im around too many people for too long. I don’t do social media because it seems like a constant stream of people advertising how great their life is, inadvertently reminding me how great my life is not.

Drugs help but inebriation is only a temporary solution that leaves me feeling worse when the final moments of haze gives way to sobriety. Sex and the ecstasy it brings helps as well to restore some confidence but like drugs, the high is fleeting and dissipates faster than a candle dancing in the wind. Ive tried loving other people hoping that the gift of love being returned would somehow make me love myself more if I understood why people loved me but it doesn’t take the jealous nature of Depression long to rear itself and fuck up my relationships as well.

I’ve tried prayer, begging whichever existential conscious who actually gives a damn, for absolution or deliverance from this terrible affliction. But the only one who answered was Depression, whispering to me that ‘God isn’t listening but baby I am, and I will never be too far away’ reminding me that Depression is very much real . Sometimes, it even whispers that there is even a possibility that God probably even hates me.  Which makes me wonder, if humanity is God’s finest creation, then God must definitely be a sadist if God felt the need to put melancholic feelings in our hearts.

Depression has more in common with a successful virus then most people realize. It has the capacity to kill you but like a virus, it doesn’t destroy it’s host environment until it successfully infects someone else first. It spreads to everyone around you and may kill off some but it will leave a small percentage alive to keep its war on humanity going.

So I continue to endure life and all of it’s needless complexities, traveling down the road of misery with Depression while I write my requiem for better days.

HarleyQinn_2
DarkSnake1010
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 26th Feb 2016
Forum Posts: 218

good job poet! keep it Up!

_shadoe_
yiyi
Tyrant of Words
54awards
Joined 25th Apr 2013
Forum Posts: 563

memoria ~
       

   how many jackhammers?

          one revolution
          or was it two ago?
                   
                    i slammed back the date
                    & felt it burn its way
                    down my throat,

   my veins steeped
   in morose realization ~

               ... there is a lifetime
                    drowning in that bottle
                   
           i don't know if it's mine or

    if i'm trying to find you
    in rapidly emptying solace ...

                          ***

           & i will sleep alone,

                  shamefully drunk
                  & weeping

      as though it's new
      as though i need
      an excuse

                    to self-sooth
                   with the neck
                   between my lips

          if it wasn't you
          it would be something else

                          driving me to seek
                          oblivion

                         //

Hepcat61
geoff cat
Dangerous Mind
United States 33awards
Joined 27th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 1028

withdrawn...

poet Anonymous

<< post removed >>
HarleyQinn_2
DarkSnake1010
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 26th Feb 2016
Forum Posts: 218


Jade-Pandora
jade tiger
Tyrant of Words
United States 154awards
Joined 9th Nov 2015
Forum Posts: 5134

LOST

It's all you've got,
even as it starts to rain
with finger lights, 'cause

life is a lonely night of cigarettes,
while in pain, one by one, slowly
the songs are sung.

Harmonizing
with a lost chord in between
the rain that falls, 'cause

life is a lonely night of cigarettes,
drumming in your head; the thunder
that never comes.

Wearing one shoe
don't know where your socks have gone
in a motel room—

life is a lonely night of cigarettes,
running out of matches, and damp
rising from the floor.

Sleep arrives when
you're sitting, staring into
nothingness of blue—

life is a lonely night of cigarettes,
sensory deprived, and living
short of dying.


Copyright ©2016 Jade Pandora.  All Rights Reserved.

chump
Thought Provoker
United States 6awards
Joined 30th Sep 2014
Forum Posts: 417

medication

these words can't be mine
they sound from a mind
that's health is not fine

they're full of help
and hope
and sorrow and rope

it's hard to tell
if the writer can or can't
cope

does he need prosac
or just a fat sack
of dope

maybe i should try it
i wish the voices would
quiet

one says i should feast
one says i should daint
one says you're a saint, you filthy beast

snugglebuck
Dangerous Mind
United States 77awards
Joined 3rd Feb 2014
Forum Posts: 1873

http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t623/curlycue23/dumpster7.jpg

Muroidea Paranoia


Inspired by Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'

Like Lucifer’s fall from grace
I dropped from the human race

Neurotic paranoid schizoaffective with addiction
Into the dark I retreated with my mental affliction
Dilapidating in desperation I prowl and sneak
Nearsightedly on hands and knees I rummage slink and creep
Scavenging the sewers, gutters, dumpsters, clutter and alleys
Of garbage and sewage for digestible grubbery
Filthy frizzled frazzled mangy hair crawling with lice and fleas
My surviving mustard-colored teeth decay with disease
Like tusks over my withered lips only a few remain
My dirty untrimmed fingernails are yellow and frayed
I’m harmless, yet people are startled at my sight
So I prowl in the lonely shadows of the night
My humanity is slowly disintegrating
Tweaking ticking twitching scratching shivering
Body constantly moving in psychomotor agitation
Chemical mortification of the flesh in declination
Some dumpsters are better than others
Some swill and garbage has more to offer
My inflamed olfactory detects odorants of molding
Leading me to a steel cornucopia of bakery leavings
Where I feast on musty maggot-infested sweet breads
With such abandon I’m oblivious to the iron jaws of death

“Hey Jack…Jack!
Come here quick!
Look at the huge rat
I caught in my trap!”




NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Diagnosed with cancer can be a humbling experience. Though I never had a substance abuse problem, the synthetic opiates I took, along with the effects of chemo, were devastating to my psyche. Plagued with insomnia, I’d wander the streets at night. I looked like a wreck. My hair fell out in patches. Due to acute dry mouth, my teeth literally rotted out of my mouth.  People avoided me like the plague. I never felt so alone. For the fist time in my life, I identified with society’s outcasts. One night, I had a horrible nightmare that I was trapped in a dumpster crawling with rats. I awoke drenched in sweat and trembling in fear. My contribution to this challenge is a reflection of these very dark days of depression.

Mr_SuitAndTie
Lost Thinker
United States
Joined 28th Apr 2016
Forum Posts: 4

Your imagery is outstanding. I absolutely love this

ilovescarystories
Thought Provoker
United States 2awards
Joined 7th Mar 2014
Forum Posts: 159

                The Golden Stairs
The  cries of war echoed across the stinking field. The corpses that were littered across the bare outbacks had their skin scrubbed bright red in their own wounds. The dirt plastered amongst their damp, moist blood stained bodies. The stench on the other hand was more putrid then the bodies itself. The sky that radiated with death and the Devils passing. Clouds darkened by the smoke that rose from the ashes. The war itself hadn't been for their deaths... No it was something much worse, the freedom of their lives. Over and over those same soldiers said they would live, that they were immortal.

Now look at the bodies spread across the dirt roads. Among those broken cribbled bodies, was me. Trambled, and beaten to death. Looming down from the golden stair case from which I stood, I pulled out my cracked walking stick and climbed. I looked away from the mangled up screams, with my tears drifting off my face.

First stair was easy enough, placing my rod on it and only slightly struggling. When I got to the top of the first stair, the rod began to snap and to my horror completely broke in two. I picked up the fractured remains and threw them out towards the battle field.

"Leave me be!" I said with a blood filled scream. Suddenly a dark mist began to come near me, covering all the soldiers. I tried to all my might to get up the stairs as fast as possible. Each stair grew steeper, each stair content on sliding me down to my doom.

"If I can only make it, I will be safe" I told myself over and over. The fog climbed up even more stairs covering them all behind me. Until I finally made it to the final stair, I struggled to reach the top of the stair. I jumped all in vain.

"Please!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"I don't want to go back there!" I began to sob. The stair was too high to reach, forever out of my reach. I fell to my knees and began to sob. The bright light cascading down them, forever fighting the pointless battle from below, I will be trapped. I turned to the fog and walked back down the stairs with ease. The black clearing up until I saw my corpse on the ground...

I woke uo coughing up blood, with my comrade next to me. His eyes staring off into the black abyss which is forver unreachable to me. To the right of me was a small child, who's eyes were dull but alive.

"There is no hope, there is no heaven, no not here, there is only the sounds of war" the small child said.

"No here, there is only death" I said.

TinaLouise
Twisted Dreamer
Australia 3awards
Joined 20th Dec 2015
Forum Posts: 89

A DAY IN THE LIFE...

Persistent sadness, worthlessness, guilt and shame
anger turned inward, suicidal thoughts, dissociation
looking at others and knowing you are not the same

Prolonged violence and feeling trapped for decades
a tendency to self medicate or live your life on an endless
supply of prescriptions, the placebo effect - nothing more
than useless chemical bandaids

The inability to view or witness trauma
due to the fact that all your senses are heightened
powerless to your emotions, your mind takes you right
back to that place; leaving you helpless and frightened

Isolating yourself because you've experienced immense
distrust, inbuilt schemas manifest a lifetime of mistreatment
and abuse, childhood/adult domestic violence is debilitating
there is no excuse

Talking about it is senseless when society believes you to be weak
and have victim's tendencies, instead of
restoration of power and the ability to see Survivors as courageous
not weak and defenseless

Complex PTSD requires trust, safety, love, and understanding
the worst thing you can do to a survivor is lie, bully, harass and be demanding

These people may seem Crazy, Bi-polar, or Borderline Personality, the truth is;
they are fighting depression, self loathing, and acute anxiety, please be patient, be kind and always remember they are fighting every minute a silent and constant
battle in their mind

   Written by TinaLouise

TinaLouise
Twisted Dreamer
Australia 3awards
Joined 20th Dec 2015
Forum Posts: 89

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

The most beautiful people have been hurt
have been beaten, controlled and stripped
they've known emptiness, struggle and defeat

the most beautiful people have known loss and trauma
sad and lonely fighting but have lost their will to compete

Just as broken bones can mend
So too can a beautiful broken mind

depression is like wandering around in a
world full of love, though you cannot see
for you are temporarily blind

Please remember that healing takes time
even the darkest nights will end and the sun
will eventually rise

the most beautiful people are always smiling
hiding the anxiety behind their eyes

Loving one self is not selfish or vain
the most beautiful people evolve from
a world filled with turmoil and pain

caring, compassionate, loving souls
who have merely lost their way and
forgotten their goals

The most beautiful people are those
suffering Anxiety and Depression
for they are the angels longing to
return home who can no longer
bare this earthly transgression

  Written by TinaLouise

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