Wednesday, December 9, 2015

And Being Strong Enough to do It

Today we woke to discover
our once loved regrets have become
an empty shoe-box in our heads.

Books full of memories can fill a warehouse
but when we become too blind to read them,

we sink deeper and deeper
into the blackest hole of hurt.

Where aching hearts feel looking forward
is the last thing you should ever do,
and you realize there are many things
you will never be able to see again.

That's when holding on to the one thought
which made you smile most
is the only thing worth reflecting on,

and when you can't remember that smile,
search for the kindness those around
would lend you in your saddest hour.

Be lost,
for a moment,
in an array of recollections in your spirit,
because at times,
the only way to find your way back to today,
is a peak back at the past.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Burn it Down

I'm an outcast of your criticism,
I am the warm sunset
glowing orange with agony
on this rainy beach.

You see me so unpleased
with your insults,
but what you don't see
is my lightening strike
as I set fire to this lonely tree.

You don't see the beauty
in the flames that rise
to make this tree
fall to nothing
but the ash
which is dying
our beach sand black.

That tree will forever
be buried in the sand,
and the tide will carry it off
into the unknown of the ocean.

It's there that you will
meet an orange sun
of your own making

and let the tide
wash away what's left
of your lonely tree.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Ideas

Gathering my thoughts,
getting rid of them.

Clearing my head,
filling it back up
with new ideas.

It's a new day,
of course
it's a new day.

Where does it all lead?

To more days alone
in this empty house.

A dimly lit room
where my thoughts
can take the lead.

All I need is to empty my head
and fill another room
with each thoughtful thing inside.

The Truth of the Matter is

That book was filled with all the pain,
regret and torture endured in the past.

If left alone with my thoughts,
I'd fall into a pit of self harm and self pity,

it was there I leapt off the edge several times,
but never fell knowing how dangerous
I was to myself or anyone else around me.

I held on tightly to this book,
filled it with everything missing in my life,
so someday it could be found.

Thriving for the possibility of my words being dropped
and picked up by someone who could understand
the need for substance in my empty mind.

It became a list of everything wrong with me,
what needed and seemed impossible to change.
I held them deep and close to me,
and often ripped the pages and replaced them
with new ones full of more or less detail.

Reality showed that I wanted to rewrite myself everything
down to the length of my bleeding fingernails,
all because I felt no one could ever love me as I was.

So I began to live the lie I wrote myself until
I met someone who finally read me.
Someone who asked why I felt as I did.

It was a question I never could answer.

That was when everything changed,
when by my own omission, the lies surfaced,
yet this someone could still love me
despite being under the cover of this book.

Someone saw more. . .

The book still exists, but the confused self
and lost people in that life who would follow no longer do.

The someone who asked,
who changed my life,
never left me feeling empty.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Your Lonely Windowsill

She left a candle burning bright
in the darkest shadows of her home-

Where the hills were her finest friends,
and her greatest vision-
a sunset lined with white lace
which she poured on paper in black ink.

Her last request was to torch
what remained of the beautiful scene in ink,
for to her it felt so incomplete.

And for what reason does she throw away
all of her wearisome work?

Is it a vanilla scented casket?
An orchid?
Some blue-field violets?

We left her to rest,
but the world will not
until every single character
she scribed has been seen
by our human eyes.

She yearned for death so long,
yet still lives through every word she once wrote.

Now she's gone,
and all the world wants is her return
for a simple explanation.

It's a cold hint of irony,
an unforgettable one
we all must someday face.

It's all Wavy Lines

No one sees the world the way I do.

Even the lens in my eye is angled oddly,
but that's beside the point because
I'm talking about perspective in it's entirety,
a whole wide view of the world.

Not the separation
between my beliefs and yours,
the big picture.

How I perceive you as an individual,
how I associate your name
with an emotion, color, or your attitude.

I'm talking about how my emotions
move like pictures in my mind,
how I see them as actual colors
and odd shapes of all kinds.

How anger is nearly always red with fury
and often combines with other colors
to show complete indifference.

It's not cut and dry,
as I'm never feeling just one emotion,
and no two are ever alike.

While most people sway to the left or the right
with the color of their individualism,
I swirl and spiral like a crazy combination
of deep reds and violet blues.

I've drawn it several times,
still no one seems to understand.

Although I've never met another like me,
I know I can't be alone in the middle
of all the motion pictures in my mind.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Posthumousity

My life is hanging on a wire
for all of you to acquire.

You see all of my ups and downs,
and all the in-betweens.

Today I could be a Melting Clock,
or maybe a Monet,
or maybe I'm a piece that never sells until
my composers death has come.

Why our accomplishments
suddenly matter more in our death,
I'll never know.

Maybe I was agonized over,
but no one ever lived
to see me thrive.

I do hope that I'm not what my composer
worked a lifetime for,
but felt they never did succeed.

If I do have to be a legacy
someone left behind,
hang me high, light me up.
Let everyone see how hard
someone worked to complete me,

because now that I can finally be called complete,
my creator can rest in peace.

Monday, November 9, 2015

The Power Trip

She left them silent
listening to every lie
she let out,
but the guilt got to her
like a shepherds crook
around the neck.

A bad performance
in bad taste
by a very convincing artist.

She says persuasion is the key

You can make anyone believe anything,
but always at the cost of your conscience.

If you want to be believed;
be realistic,
be relatable,
play the part you know
they'll choose to believe.

Because they only ever
choose to believe
any lie you let out.

Convince them that
you're an honest person,
but wait a second. . .

Wouldn't it just be easier if
I just said no thanks?
I have more important things to do
than learn to be a good liar.

I told her if you want to be believed;
be realistic,
be honest.

I'm here Everyday

The happiness you lack is only temporary,
in our best moments it creeps out to greet me
in the most amazing ways.

So relax and trust me,
I know the feeling is real.

I see how the sadness and anger seep from you,
moving their way into the lives
of those around you every time.

Focus on what to be thankful for;
your wife, your house, your health,
and the life you've worked so hard to live.

Let the lesser fall to dust
and focus on everything
that kept you alive today.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Empty Words and Performance Nerves

So, you call me selfish?

Well, I've got news for you,
you're not exactly selfless.

I won't let the smoke come before me,
this self serving habit that destroys you
and everyone around you.

Well, I've got news for you,
your words are empty when
you take toxicity over family
and have the nerve to call me selfish.

Tough love, I'm just selfish enough
to follow through, tough cookies,
but I'm not watching you circle the drain.

You're welcome in my life,
but the smoke you blow is not.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Done and Over

I lost a piece of me in history,
dropped it along the way,
but dropped it on purpose.

Now that I'm on my own,
there's no one here to stop me
from being who I am.

I'm not alone,
it doesn't matter
who's opposed because,
I,
am for me!

There are,
and always will be,
those in my life
who will try to convince me,
that I'm the worlds worst
kind of person.

I dropped the piece of me
that ever bought in to that.

My self-worth was lost
because of that piece.

Although I will never be,
I'm one step closer to complete
because when that piece was lost,
some self-esteem was found.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Focus

For all the expectations made and obtained
there's a snag in the tight rope line
of reaching your resting place.

An already thin line
is even more daunting to step
when your eyes drift to dream
of where you'd rather be.

Getting to that dream is
essentially the same
as falling to your demise.

Dreaming is dangerous,
it'll send you plummeting
back down to earth,
but also leave you gathering the rest
of your splattered self off the ground.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Do it Yourself

Optimism doesn't die,
it's here despite
the ultimate acceptance
of the worst possible scenario,

and makes the best of any disaster.

An impression through any rearing eyes
can destroy every bit of it
with the cynicism they can reap.

Always inspire your children
and believe they can change the world,
because believe me, they can.

The second you tell them they can't
you end any chance they once had
to be something,
you liquefy their character
making them feel meaningless.

Just remember no one has any reason
not to have faith in you,
because you do follow through every time.

Remember that you're meaningful,
substantial, significant, influential
and most of all, worthy
despite the fact that no one has ever
believed in you.

Keep these words in mind
when your confidence has sunken
and there's no one around
to boost it up for you,

because it's a sad world
and no one is going to
pick you up when you fall.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

The Shoe Analogy

I'm not broken at all,
I'm broken in
like a great pair of shoes.

It took a lot of tread
to get me here,
and I definitely blistered
along the way.

As long as I'm not over-used,
I'll never need a new pair again.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

This Flight is the End and Start of My Life.

I've gone from staring at that one star out of my hospital window
fearing it would fall down on me and burn me to death,
to desperately, jumping, daring to catch that one star
which I once feared would nearly kill me.

Not only have I moved on from
that one small unreachable star,
I've created one for you and I,
and for every gold star out there
I put myself aside
for a better life.

I decided I'd rather be on this flight
staring out the window at the sun,
instead of fearing the potential ones
floating somewhere out in the atmosphere,

because I have more to offer this world
than a sad seat in a hospital room
next to the window.

Somewhere along the skyline of this world
I must've forgotten who I was,
but before I was ever able to see the world,
I'm not sure I ever even knew.

I know everyone struggles with self;
self esteem,
self worth,
and the ability to shut off self-consciousness
so the world can see you,

but I wish I could begin to explain
how much worse it is in your head.

I'm telling you to take a deep breath,
and stop the self-abuse,

because sometimes we make life
so much more difficult
than it ever needs to be.

So if you could just start forgiving yourself,
it'd make moving on
to making your dreams come true
so much easier for you.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

As Long as We're Together

Here we go,
a turn in the road,
and another dark night drive
song to sing to.

For hours on what looks like
such a seamless
and endless
road to the middle
of a nowhere that
I'm soon to call home.

"I'd rather stay on
the East coast,"
I said,

"but I want whatever
will make you happy
because I can be happy
anywhere."

That's conditional of course.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Nowhere

Searching for a home
I can't quite find,

then I saw you
standing on a street corner
begging for a penny,
or some peace of mind.

Money isn't the important thing,
it's the power of having people
who are more than willing
to take care of you
in your time of need.

A house is a hard candy
kind of thing.

Sure,
it's sweet to have
but as soon as you bite
it can break your teeth,

and all the unimportant things
we fill our houses with,
like commercialism.

They break our quality of life,
and where's the profit in that?

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Remember That

I had an epiphany today,
words,
I'm sure I've said to myself before.

Words of comfort,
words of wisdom,
words that change;

your mind,
your outlook,
your mentality.

Words that change your life
and give you some relief
from the exhaust fumes
you've been breathing
because everyone knows
you could use a breath
of fresh air for once.

You can't avoid reflecting,
but you can always look forward.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

And that's Why I Love You

A little bit of in between is where we are
we make the happy medium here,

we seep into a shred of hope
that someday soon
we can both have what we want
out of a life
which only started treating us well
when we met.

We make our dreams come alive.

Sometimes we have to play
what feels like
life's longest waiting game
to get where we need to be,

but if in the end
it benefits us both
to take the time to think,

I know we'd take it every time.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Don't Buckle Under the Pressure, Push Past it

When you start finding
that you aren't the person
you thought you were,

know that you're your own enemy.

Push past the pain you think you caused,
start to see far past your insecurities,
then get to the issue to find
the great person you can become.

Although I don't know you anymore,
I know that sometimes
it takes someone else to see
what you can't yet see in yourself.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Somehow

The recollection isn't real,
it's an invention of a mind
threatened by the thought
of what was once lived.

There's no way to erase the fear
of an irrational illness
that can take over any time it pleases.

Delusions, deceptions, dark hallucinations
are the only memories that entered my mind
since it decided amnesia was a better exit.

There's no way to revive the memory
amnesia stole from me, but I don't
sit in a state of self destruction
waiting for the next bomb to go off on me.

I walk around, take my chances,
and if step on a land mine
I trust I'll survive the aftermath.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

And You Become the Levee.

In response to intrusive thoughts,
sometimes you just
have to take a breath,
and tell yourself,
"It's just not true."

Don't let them tear you apart.
Don't let them lock you up.
Don't let them define who you are.

Let them be a flowing river.
Let them seep around your existence.
Let them make you strong enough to withstand the current.

They will come and go
stirring you less and less,
until one day the thought is gone forever.

Monday, May 25, 2015

It Breaks My Heart

Even though I'd enjoy
the comfort of an old friend,
you make yourself sparse
and stay a stranger
as if I'd done something
severe to harm you,
when I know I haven't.

Blue eyes, white hair, pale skin,
hunched over slightly
as you use to do,
a young man with an old look,
that's how I remember you.

As an amazing friend
should stay that way,

but life

doesn't work that way.

Where did you go?

The question of your existence
often keeps me up at night
screaming to myself in my mind,

the you,
I use to know
is no longer so.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

That's My Husband

I take comfort in knowing
that with all the chaos
made up in my mind,

you're a constant,
completely supportive
companion in my life.

So I drag my fingers across
your skin while you sleep,
and scoot up behind you
while you snore.

It's nice to have a place to call home,
a place where I'll never be alone.

Where one familiar face
will always embrace me,
and be there for me
even when I'm broken.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

My Mind

A deep breath as a reminder
of all I hold on to
and a deep breath to let go
of what's been abandoned,

your apprehension
leaves you asking
if I'm alright.

It's almost always just a ceremonial sigh
for accepting everything as it is.

Some conditions never change
and while ours is one
I'm very happy with,

the ones that don't
tend to dig into the only
place they don't belong.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Of Who You Use to Be.

As my breath grows deeper,
I hear the sounds of lost allies
ringing between these ears.

You've become so overcast
that even though you're a face
I'd recognize anywhere,

I'll never recognize
the stranger you've become.

I'll always remember you,
not the way I want to,
but as a broken down recollection.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

You Said You Were Just a Teacher



The most profound moment in my life
 was not given to me
in the form of some grand gesture,
but instead articulated
through one insightful adage.

“This girl wears her heart on her sleeve.” 

I may have been too young to understand,
 what exactly that meant,

but it was the first time anyone fought for me.

It’s something I’ll never forget,
how you stepped in
and told everyone that you should never
demoralize someone when they’re down.

I was transparent and vulnerable,
 and you did what you could
to keep them from feeding on me
like the hungry wolves they were,

but you could’ve done more.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Somehow We Work

There you were just a few years
before the worst point in my life,
when I was living in a state
of what I thought was the worst.

Neither of us expected what came next,
but you were still around when it was over.

I could never number the countless
so called friends I lost
over such a state of confusion.

I'll leave them numberless,
because they don't even
deserve that satisfaction.

They are less in my mind,

because,

how hard is it to simply
be there for someone?

It's as simple as being at the other end
of the conversation,
the only thing you need to do
is sit and listen.

But YOU. . .

You must be the best friend in the world
because you've been around listening
to my nonsense for over a decade
and you've never once
thought less of me for it.

You led me to learning who's best left behind,
and taught me that I'm not obligated
to anyone who treats me horribly.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Where Your First Loss Leads You

Living in my head are the memories
of a blue eyed girl in a blue house.

These memories that grow
further and further from who I am
still carry on the first loss
of the best friend I ever had.

Almost twenty years have passed,
and I'm still not sure
that I've ever experienced
grief as deeply as I did that day.

Anytime I think of it,
it eats away at me
because the experience to follow,

while it was also
a blue eyed girl
in a blue house

was a devastating blow.

The memory of that failed friendship,
it's the biggest disappointment
that has me running
further and further from who I use to be

and growing more and more
into who I am today,

because you never forget.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Love is so Much Better

I dreamt you asleep
in a pitch black room
lit only by the colors
of an old 9inch tube TV.

That's the reality I grew up in

but you're so much less bleak
than the view I had in mind.

Yet for some sad reason,
my mind can't escape
the perspective it created.

You're so much more
than a ripped up mattress
laying on the floor,

or some crushed ashes in a tin can.

There's no smoke rising in this house,
no red flame that makes
it so hard to breathe.

You make life a place
to live lightheartedly.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

I Only Ever Wanted to Be

I'm realizing
as time grows colder
at some point
we all hate
who we use to be,

and even though
I'm growing older,
I can't quite
put my finger on why
we do this to ourselves.

I know
the version of myself
I still need to leave

behind

because at times
it makes me
feel less human to know

how often I hit
a dead end,
how I had to turn around

again and again,

only to fall
into yet another
fit of failure.

So as I write,

I think, maybe

I'm learning to see
why we hate so much
who we use to be.

It's simply because
we become someone else

entirely.

A better person.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

What I Can Recall

What do you do
when life feels like a needle
dragging across your skin
and there isn't much you can do
to quiet the sound
of fingernails on a chalk board
in your head?

I never thought I was sick,
never knew I was sick,
but I was sick.

It was a different kind of pain,
a kind very difficult to explain,
the kind that would tear
your paper heart to shreds.

I'm really no stronger than the rest,
my heart is made of paper too.

I'm just determined
to keep cutting mine new.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

I Don't Want to Remember D.

I still see the days when we use to sing jumper
while doing our hair in the bathroom.

I still see the
mouse stuck on the mirror.

I still see the smiley you smeared
on my parents bathroom door
with my shimmery white eye cream.

I wish I would have seen
the trouble you'd bring
which made that song
bring back your memory.

I wish I would have seen
right through that mirror.

I wish I could paint over that door
and everything that you destroyed.

Friday, March 6, 2015

The Drive to Survive

Without that voice speaking inside my head,
the desperation to be done with this disease
would have had me dead long ago.

Despite how insane you may think
it is for me to believe this voice is God;

He's always spoken to me
through the endeavor
against depression depleting me
and anxiety anxiously eating away at me,

He's forever pushing me
to move on
through my thoughts,

regardless of how pathetic
this fight has made me feel,

He's even had me reasoning
with myself on my darkest days.

So while I can't explain
His existence in my heart,

I can understand how questionable it is,

but I also can't explain my consistent
and incomprehensible desire to stay alive.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Blend or Break Away

Alienation,

again,

another place you've been locked up in.

You've never been
able to blend
and with so few words
they tell you
you're better off
on your own.

It's a crippling feeling,
of a tattered sort
of hanging turmoil,

that makes an already
sleepless sad soul
unable to be at ease.

You're tossing and turning
surviving the uncertainty
of several sleepless nights,

then and there you should remember
you didn't let anyone down.

You need to
walk away.

Walk away.

Walk away,
from anyone who makes
you feel that way,

because you're whole
the way you are,
and your self worth
isn't defined by
any individual view.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The Road Ahead

Sleepily I see

a light behind me,

of many tangled twists and turns
from the windy roads
we once walked upon.

I look forward and see
a very dim light
burning ahead of me,

guiding me to the future
which was meant for me.

A destination
I've arrived at before
is also still ahead of me

and we light its trail
every step along the way.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Someone Needs to Know that No One Needs to Know

Some words of advice
I wish I'd told myself sooner,
communication is key
to an uncomplicated life.

We all underestimate
the entity of our words,
and often choose
to hold them discreetly inward
until we fill up and erupt.

No one should ever
have to feel their
thoughts are insignificant,
and let their voice
be still in the end.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

You Were the First to Ever Ask Me

Instead of simply asking if I was okay,
I've been criticized too many times in my life,
about situations completely out of my control.

God, many times did I just want to be okay
but all too often,
I've gotten caught between the people I care about,
and their lack of caring for me.

Something I still can't understand
is how you've been able to say the things you say,
and act the way you act
without feeling any empathy whatsoever
for the person you're making feel the way you do.

So let me say something,
I don't need to be okay. .

No, I don't need to be okay,
I need to survive because
I'm pretty sure that no one
I care about cares if I'm okay.

I won't tell you if I'm not okay,
and you won't bother to ask.

No, I'll slip right between those tiny cracks
if that's what it takes to get me through
because sometimes, myself is all I have.

Despite the dark places that I have been,
empty, alone, hospitalized, starved, and scared.

That could be anyone,
but it's not me today.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Never Ending Battle of the Mind

There are no words
to describe that shred of desperation
that runs through me,
somewhere between potential futures
and former fiascoes
I try my best to make myself work
but I define myself defunct
and fail to feel any fortitude for myself.

For others it's hard to define
how I could have difficulty
believing in myself
but it's a battle of the mind,
something VERY easy to hide,
how I slip in to deep dark
corners and crevices
of what I could be
and what I feel like I'll never
be able to achieve.

You could say
it's a purgatory for the mind,
possibly a place
where I won't be left behind
but still stand far
from where I want to be
and the question I always ask myself is,
did I put myself here?

I don't want to leave myself blind
because I can't seem to see
past this ugly place in my mind,

where moving on becomes
something less than a step at a time,
and where motivation loses its meaning.

No, I want to be strong, desperately brave,
and capable of anything I want to achieve.

The challenge will always rest
in getting my brain to agree with this idea
but it's something I eventually hope to accomplish.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

An Open Book

She's a faceless girl
with a dead childhood.

She has old cracked
8mm film memories
that tend to bring tears
to her darkened eyes.

Everyone she once loved is gone,
they've moved on long ago
or time passed them away,

but thankfully, now,
she's trying to teach us
that childhood can
last a lifetime if you let it.

She's trying to say that fairy tales
only ever end when the author
writes happily ever after,

but we're not characters
in a storybook,
we're the authors of our own accord.

Each of us are individuals
with a history of our own to write
and staying young
requires just as much responsibility
as growing old.

We're millions of open ended stories
that will carry on indefinitely.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Wishful Thinking

Even in my ending
I hope I can be
either an inspiration
or an example
of what not to be
for those like me
who struggle to survive.

Since we're all existing
in this world together,
I think it's best
we see eye to eye

and learn from each other,

instead of scorning everything
beyond our understanding.

If only everyone could freely see
each perspective that such
a vast world could offer,

maybe we'd be more open
to understanding
rather than removing
those with different insight
from our vision entirely.

Monday, January 5, 2015

A Loudly Beating Heart

My mind slips away
in to some sort of oblivion
while wondering where the year has gone
because at times it feels
like it just wasted away,
but then I ask myself,

What more could I have possibly done?

Why do I never feel productive enough?

I set myself some lofty goals
and achieve each and every one
with down time to spare.

Yet this heart
still feels like it needs
a voice in this world

and it will always beat
with a stubborn determination
to carry out that plan,

until it's very last beat.