My Night at the Roxbury

My pen between my lips
as I decide how
I should say what
I'd want to say next,

or sometimes my teeth gently biting
the end of the eraser
until it seems to disappear.

My mind, once cluttered,
now quiet hears the soft hum
of traffic from a distance,
and when it's too late,
it hears the train horn
screaming down the street.

So suddenly I remember
how he once said he
was amazed by how we were able
to make ourselves heard.

Even if it meant,
we were tearing the foam
from the arms of the hospital chairs,
we were made to feel as if
it was a safe place to be vulnerable.

I sensed it was a place of healing,
a place to build the foundation
for a well balanced brain and well being.

Somehow I said more
with the clutter in my head
just trying to empty it out,
than I ever would when aware of my actions.

I wish I could obtain the same courage
as I had in an unsound state,
it's something important that I lost.

A Goodbye as I Try to Let it Go

When your tears are so acidic
they sting your cheeks
over the family
you've never had the opportunity to have-

Do you ever stop grieving
over your losses?

Or is your only choice to move on
into a world that seems so abysmal
without the ones you could've loved?

Stop Over-Thinking Things

You spend your entire existence
trying to get your life together,

but when there's no explanation
for an unsound mind
or unsound decisions made as a result,

it's  a good time to let it fall apart
and let the dust settle.

Even without the ability to think clearly,
as long as you have a heartbeat
and a deep breath to take
sometimes it's okay to let life fall apart.

Accepting Yourself

Who am I?

I'm a nobody,

blessed by the vast graveyard

of indifferent emotions

I've been handed.

Despite my eccentricities;

my failure to be courageous,

my lack of self esteem,

and the hand dealt to me in life,

I'd still rather be no one else

but a nobody.

Sometimes the truth screams

so loudly at me,

it says,

"I am who I am meant to be."

Butting Heads with Myself

I miss the crickets chirping in the back of my mind
in the home we use to know.

Where our only company was;
the body of each other,
the warmth of the sunlight
and the silence from the streets
creeping through our window pane.

Company that gave us stories to forever tell
to a world full of possibilities and potential
that would root itself in my brain,
like ivy, impossible to remove.

I miss the cicadas roaring
outside my second story window
like aggressive waves in the sea.

No matter how alone I was,
they'd be there for me,
loud enough to overpower
every unsound thought come to mind.

Unfortunately the ivy was killed
long ago by a remedy known as reality,
a place full of pesticides,
where my crickets and cicadas
had no chance to survive.

Reality left me;
desolate,
desperate,
downcast,
and knocked down
a notch or two
where my mind says I belong.

"I can't be anything I want to be,"
my mind would tell me that,
I'm delusional for thinking
there's something out there meant for me.

So I guess I'm also delusional
for thinking that I'm exactly
where I'm meant to be.

The Rest is History

All the emotions from that moment stay in my mind
as fresh as if they happened yesterday.

The dimly lit church gym,
the band playing loud
while my heart was being broken
by not one, but two.

It only takes one terrible action
to lose a lifelong friend,
we certainly were never the same again.

I never needed you;
the lover,
or the friend,
who longed for each other.

Yet I still cried the broken hearts cry full of all the
bitterness, sadness, anger and envy,
full as it could be.

I look back on the day April 15, 2003,

as the ultimate example of what love shouldn’t be
but lucky me, one year later on the same exact day
I came to see my husband to be.

Fifteen days later;

he never proposed,
but admitted that marriage was in the cards.

So here I am today,
in an amazing home with him,

and if love were a glass of wine
I’d be inebriated,
filling another to the brim.

Self Destruction is Not the Answer

It's happening all around you,

hopelessness sneaks its way into your home,

breaks down your door

and leaves you in the dark,

depressed, defeated, let down,

alone

to fend for yourself.

You're in the position to tell hopelessness

to hold on for a minute

while you take the time to remember how

fortunate, fulfilled, and fit

you are to fend for yourself despite 
 being alone.

I Have the Unusual Spring SAD

Spring has come with howling winds
and enough rain to fill my basement twice,
but there are still sunny days.

Even with the lifeless-leafless trees,
the crows still come to nest
on the bare branches the frost left behind.

In the center of my yard,
he sits starring straight up at the sky
as if he's never before seen a sunny sky.

Although I can't explain why,
its light is oddly wounding to me.

Is it the guilt of past spring seasons
that have come creeping upon me?

Does its disgrace pull me back
to an old emotional state?

I wish I could enjoy this season
as much as the rest,
but for now I'm stuck with lifeless trees
and enough rain to fill my basement twice.

This Doesn't Even Scratch the Surface

It's relentless and unforgiving,

it steals your conscious mind

and leaves your life at risk.

There the demons left me;

in a living nightmare,

hearing voices,

talking to the air,

walking round and round

up and down

the darkest halls of my life

and not going anywhere at all.

I suppose I was searching for the will to live.

The chance to finally win the fight

to prove I could defeat the unreal influence

that had come over me and somehow shake

the frightening feelings of ending it all.

I'll always fight them, that's just who I am.

I'll never let the destruction win

but if it ever takes me over again;

I pray to God to have the strength

to recall who I am,

and if my memory

doesn't seem to serve me,
know I went down giving all I had.

Know that I only left this life behind

because the choice wasn't mine to make,

the decision was made

by the relentless and unforgiving  
actions of an unfair mind.

To Move On

A deep breath,
a moment of silence,
and a sigh of relief.

Sometimes that's all I need.