"depression"

no point

in life meaning is always found
yet for me always evasive
people find purpose in my purposeless world
no scars to reveal my shame
only empty eyes to hide my pain
life has no point
the source of my depression
the source of my confusion
the source of my pain

to end this world
would merely add
to this source
a pointless death
for a pointless life
no escape
only to live
in my world with
no point

Laughing it away

as mentioned in my pointless
a ray of light appears
perhaps simply a ray
not of hope
not of happiness
merely a sign of helplessness
my situation
so absurd
so desperate
laughing is the cure
not the best medicine
but better than crying

these poems remain little
while later ill laugh away
doing something pointless perhaps playing a fiddle
the only way of dealing
with my truth

miss me

pointless days


hah. a monochromatic
world i suffer through.
they say i created it,
that outside my mind
there is a warm, yellow sun.
they are fools.

i do not crave this darkness,
but it follows me, my own shadow
morphing into a monstrous creature
and turning against me.
my face in the mirror is gaunt and foreign.

i used to pretend to smile
but now i just float in and out of
feeling angry and sad
or emotionless.

my friends stopped calling,
time passed so slowly
that every hour was painful,
my life was average, privileged, even,
and i hated myself for hating myself
because i was a mess and
a disappointment and my
parents were still together,
and we were middle class,
and i didn't know suffering,
and i didn't have it half as bad as
most everybody.

but i still couldn't get out of bed,
still wished i had the guts
to kill myself,
still had no motivation to
change, or make a change
or help other people.

i dont bring up the past.
i admit,
i was depressed.
and it was pathetic.

WITHOUT A COAT

Years ago I stepped outside into the cold without a coat
Because I wanted to feel something,
I wanted some hardship, when everything felt painfully, agonizingly easy, and I didn’t know if I fit
in this cosmos

Listening to “written in the stars” from Aida the broadway musical
On the bus, on the way back from community college
Where I was an alien creature
As I thought about what would happen if I stepped into the train track, and shivered,

“is it written in the stars,
are we paying for some crime,
is this all that we are good for,
just a stretch of mortal time,
or some god’s experiment,
in which we have no say,
in which we’re given paradise,
but only for a day….”

Yea. That was my jam.
Wondering if my life was a cruel experiment.
Oh how cliché
Hah!
But that's where I went

Called my mom one day and said it, “maybe I just don’t belong in this world, maybe I’m just from a different dimension and this existence isn't gonna work out”
“don’t be ridiculous, of course you belong in this world, we’ll figure this out honey, don’t worry, we’ll figure this out, we’ve got you covered”

I don’t know if she hid a crack in her voice or if she really wasn’t worried

One day she was taking my sister to school and she came back,
and I saw her pull up in front of the house and run inside to find me
Panic had stricken her as she drove
She clung to my side
“I’ll go to the park with you while you go running”
I had never felt so loved in all my days of being an alien creature

You see I  thought I was dead.
I mean I knew I was eating and breathing but that was just a formality.
I was past the point of no return,

Went outside without a coat just to put myself through something
To prove I had nerve endings
To prove I was alive

My Journey In Life Just Played

My life so far
is lived in style
a hot sports car
but there must be more

Not saving a penny in that jar
we all live in denial
who taught us such fantasy
which we all can adore

I lost my mind
then fell well behind
confused, bemused and feeling totally used
spat out after being thoroughly chewed

Please help me
I cried out loud to my child
even found tears on my divorce papers I filed

Just played, my journey in life just played
Just played

When it's so hard just to play
with the love of my life
for even a moment in a day
I know I'm in strife

To believe in love
you have to want to love
to be in love
you have to fly like a white dove

Is that when you know true love?

It took a while for me to know
I don't know when
maybe on the Nile while typing with my pen
a thought fell over me, which I can show thee
my journey played out just a snippet of life
there's more to hold onto
than a section of my strife

Just played on, my journey in life just played,
just played

Is that when you know true love?

"My Life Isn't The Same Without You"


We had such a beautiful sweet life

Did everything together with my wife

Saw our lives unfolding, year after year

Looking to the future without any fear

We went through some tough times

Worked it out and looked for the signs

Drifted apart for times, don't remember when

Argued and didn't talk with each other again

Thinking about what else could be out there

Still love you but it seems you just don't care

It will all be ok in the end, I said

On the brink of a meltdown to my head

Not being as honest with myself as before

Even started to tell little white lies galore

Living my own life with no land insight

Deciding to live my life because the time is right

On my own and free to live life, my way

Crying at night and smiling during the day

Putting on a brave face to the ones who cared

What have I done, I am so friggin scared

Oh please, come home to me, my baby

I'm sorry for the way it went down

Can we try again and move to a new town

My life isn't the same without you, my lady.

The Black Dog

Don't look away because I'm getting real with it
Talking about depression how it feels and how to deal with it
It's something that money and cars and women won't heal
So listen for a minute while I lay it down for real
You can't understand it if you haven't been through
So I'm going to try to paint a verbal picture for you

They call it the Black Dog
He comes and goes without  please
He brings the black cloud
That will force you to your knees
That dark bubble that engulfs and surrounds your clear mind
Will leave you clouded and full of bad thoughts the worst kind

The first time I had a taste I thought today's a bad day
Two months later still nothing has gone my way
Motivation is gone sleep sleep away for so long
It's a sad song and if you change channels these thoughts will be gone
But that's not how it works
You have no choice in this matter
Medication or toughen up
I always had to choose the latter

If a man was on a ledge I would know just what to say
Because I admit I talk myself down every day
It's inherent it's genetic
Not something I chose
But I choose to expel it
Using deft verbal prose

A good day for some can leave me cowering in fear
Because I feel the Black Dog
His growling is so near
A friend said she should ask people how their day is more often
A friend can chase those clouds and make those dark thoughts soften
I've been in a place I never thought I'd return from
I've been at my lowest and heard people say I'm wrong
Saying that I'm weak and that my courage is worthless
When I just can't escape I crave a life that is curseless

Keep your head up and just remember one thing
Lightning strikes from the ground up
So find your power within
Find something that lights your fire and something to hold on to
Tell yourself it's worth living even if you don't want to

If you suffer I suffer we are in this together
I will keep watch regardless of weather
The Black Dog scares me but I'm strong and I know it
You have the power too and I'll help you to show it

Depression is real but it's never your fault though
If you're in this with me then I just want you to know
I love you and you're needed so please keep on going
I'm trying to save us all with the hope that I'm sowing

Smile today because tomorrow might be bad
But regardless of mental illness I'm alive and I'm glad

A trip to the hospital.

the whiteness of sheets fade
the blackness of my pupils dull out
the pink eraser is being pushed across my consciousness
the compass broke and i can't find me

days before, I'd been sitting under the pink sheets of a hospital bed
"You know, you were so happy when you were 8 and 9,
you could talk to anyone and have a great time,"
Dad had told me last night before,
the tear immersed like the doctor's whispers
yet each voice sounded like a siren against my ear

my veins had been pushing against the surface of my flesh
and my teeth felt sharper than the silver scissors that be accessible
Mom had discovered it and taken it away,
but had yet to rip my teeth out

I had decided to make my bones push against my watercolour blue veins
and bit like a dog to bone
i filled in the spaces with a knife and allowed myself to bleed

yet moments after, a mere clementine gave me a reason
to tell my mom
and the same sirens came that I hadn't wanted to hear.

HEP-ATITUS
(a sonnet…what the fuck else?)

A plague of fetid blood so I’ve become
Who vomits only bile and drywall dust
In horrid little squares whose added sum
Is so much sewer pipe and iron rust

A blood that has no purpose left to serve
But poison heart that nothing should remain
A black oil crust that’s shedding every nerve
Like shards of ground glass coursing through my brain

I wish that I could open veins and smear
Cute rounded flowers everywhere I see
But even then would square on square appear
My blood coagulates in squares of scree

To vomit bloody squares is all I can
Which takes me back to where my shit began

Purgatory, Long Poem to Heaven

They say Purgatory
is the space between
heaven and hell
so is it purgatory
when a son tries to get to heaven
while
his father is going through hell

I am perplexed
Why So little Good happens around me
While I remain a Good person
I am perplexed
Am I of little Faith
Am I of Great faith

I don't know
All I know is that
I have so many ups and downs
So many factors
I sometimes wonder
If I am truly me
If I am comfortable with me

Have you ever looked outside a window
And wondered why you are feeling the breeze from the inside

Am I ashamed
Why am I Sane
Yet I was raised
By insanity

Why Am I a saint
Who has been raised by sinners
Now I find sin creeping up my spine
That way I keep my hands clean

I pray to a God I cannot see
They call this blind faith
Yet I can't let go of the feeling
That I am loved

Am I living in a paradox
Feeling love
In a world of Hate
Feeling Pleasure
In the Pain

I have never had it all
Yet I'm always in a circle
Of people who actually have it all
I am part of a history filled with pain
And Heartache
Yet I am suppose to smile
While my mother grieves

We are living in a insane world
Pantopticism all around us
Yet we must find Joy
In the Havoc
Now I cannot sleep
And I Write this poem
I'm still deciding on the reason
Or Maybe I just need a reason
To go on

Go on with it all
My dreams and Ambitions
Because All I have now are my words
And My undying spirit
Which was once a wild beast
Now Tamed by circumstance
I don't know if this poem will end
I'm just blowing off steam
Yet I am not angry

Lord Bless this Day
My will still wants me to conquer
But Your will, will be done
Damn stuck in my religious childhood
And My spiritual Youth that seeks no religion

So what is purgatory
to a person who has been raised in hell whilst being promised Heaven?

NEVER GOOD ENOUGH
(a sonnet...)
(to never again defer my madness, pain or truth)

It’s hated spawn I am, begun in her
Birthed in rebuke that truth and worth denied
My pain, the chorus sings, to all defer
For crazy is not real if bound inside

In writing songs, for words are all I had
That stopped the chorus so my words were heard
For hung in measure, truth might seem less mad
On fingered notes might speak it undeterred

Another harpy stripped that muse from me
Her only hallowed truth would now be mine
My truth imprisoned, her enforced decree
Yet madness brought me others of my kind

I offered them my truth and bought rebuff
And chorus echoes, “never good enough”

The Ledge

It has been likened to deep sadness or melancholy
But the path I walk lacks the logic of sadness,
the sweet peace of melancholy…
This path is bitter nonsense.
And even though I know that to be true
it is still the path on which I find myself:
with a sting at the eyes and churn of the stomach,
a squirming rawness beneath my skin….
And the reflexive shield of a smile.

My path lies on a narrow ledge
One side plunges to a treacherous abyss
The other side is a solid wall
There is nowhere to go but forward
slowly through the terror
in hope that the ledge may one day widen
into an open sunlit field -
that field where brothers and sisters dwell.

I ache as they call to me from the field
Whispering images of the joy and lightness there
But their words bounce off my congealed heart.
Some who don’t fear the pit will walk the ledge with me for a time,
When I am brave and desperate enough to invite them,
And I am safe from tumbling while they hold my hand.
But it is not their path, and they cannot stay long.

The bottomless dark also calls,
Threatens and beckons
Murmuring poison barbs against my tender nape
It will not be ignored or dismissed.
“Come, rest in my sweet-soft folds
Spread naked your inmost dreams
While I tenderly disembowel your aspirations,
Feed you the entrails of your most pungent fears.
Come, let yourself yield to the ease of my blackness.”

My only defense to this siren call
is to curl fetal in the path
Abide the buffeting winds
That unbalance me
Alone on the ledge,
Cover my head, squeeze eyes and ears tight
As I wail silently for the storm to pass
And another steady hand to grasp

My Crazy Lady

Deep in mind’s corners now she lies in wait
That nasty witch with nothing kind to say
And when she comes into the light of day
Her words are subtly venomous with hate

She has an energy I can’t deny
Such anger’s useful when put to a task
In times of need I’ll gladly wear her mask
But her dismissal often goes awry

And then her fury turns its fire within
Unsatisfied with everything she sees
Muttering incantations of disease
Convicting me of every deadly sin

She’s sneaky; doesn’t outright put me down
But raises doubts that strike too close to heart
Questioning intentions is her art
She’ll twist a smile to make it seem a frown

To love she thus bestows on me a blindness
Makes strangers of the ones that I hold dear
Such desperate isolation from all kindness
Is her design, and my abiding fear

Don't look away because I'm getting real with it
Talking about depression how it feels and how to deal with it
It's something that money and cars and women won't heal
So listen for a minute while I lay it down for real
You can't understand it if you haven't been through
So I'm going to try to paint a verbal picture for you

They call it the Black Dog
He comes and goes without  please
He brings the black cloud
That will force you to your knees
That dark bubble that engulfs and surrounds your clear mind
Will leave you clouded and full of bad thoughts the worst kind

The first time I had a taste I thought today's a bad day
Two months later still nothing has gone my way
Motivation is gone sleep sleep away for so long
It's a sad song and if you change channels these thoughts will be gone
But that's not how it works
You have no choice in this matter
Medication or toughen up
I always had to choose the latter

If a man was on a ledge I would know just what to say
Because I admit I talk myself down every day
It's inherent it's genetic
Not something I chose
But I choose to expel it
Using deft verbal prose

A good day for some can leave me cowering in fear
Because I feel the Black Dog
His growling is so near
A friend said she should ask people how their day is more often
A friend can chase those clouds and make those dark thoughts soften
I've been in a place I never thought I'd return from
I've been at my lowest and heard people say I'm wrong
Saying that I'm weak and that my courage is worthless
When I just can't escape I crave a life that is curseless

Keep your head up and just remember one thing
Lightning strikes from the ground up
So find your power within
Find something that lights your fire and something to hold on to
Tell yourself it's worth living even if you don't want to

If you suffer I suffer we are in this together
I will keep watch regardless of weather
The Black Dog scares me but I'm strong and I know it
You have the power too and I'll help you to show it

Depression is real but it's never your fault though
If you're in this with me then I just want you to know
I love you and you're needed so please keep on going
I'm trying to save us all with the hope that I'm sowing

Smile today because tomorrow might be bad
But regardless of mental illness I'm alive and I'm glad