saving me

I walk to take in the world    
to step outside my head  
remind myself that new memories    
are made by doing    
not by thinking about doing    
   
I sling my camera around my neck    
step out the door and take    
deliberate imperfect photos    
because real beauty    
is finding the flaws in the facade    
and loving them anyway    
maybe morso for their cracks    
and bends and breakages    
   
Because I am cracked    
and bent and broken    
but I still want the ones I love    
to find me beautiful and loveable    
regardless off the imperfect way    
I hold myself in this world    
I sometimes struggle to be in    
   
I self talk my way through the photos    
to avoid the looming panic attack    
I fight to see through my thoughts    
that tell me this life is useless    
that I am useless    
that art is useless    
   
Because there is beauty    
in the old houses      
and the dead trees    
that stand tall    
despite losing their leaves    
to age and illness and winter days    
   
There's beauty in the stoner hippy    
sitting on the curb    
next to the vandalised street signs    
there's beauty in the obscene graffiti    
on the building next to    
the Christian thrift store    
   
There's beauty in cracked pavement    
with dandelions poking through    
and the abandoned trolley someone    
threw in the river    
   
There's beauty everywhere    
and every time I bother    
to open my eyes    
it saves me    
   
I take my camera to remember why