I've been avoiding home lately because
home is where my noise turns into
static
into nails on a chalkboard
into the grinding metal of a head-on car collision.
When I ask my mother how she is doing, her mouth is flat
as flat
as the empty space of her bed.
She is the one who can make the world
believe that "I'm fine" and suffering and lonely
are synonyms for one another, a language
I know all too well.
Living with a parent who has chronic depression means that you become the parent, too. It means making sure she leaves her bed for the day,
that she doesn't drink too much every night,
that she doesn't spend too much time alone.
It means I will become accustomed to just how loud the silence can be.
I want to yell at her with every single cell of my body, letting the reverberation
chip away at the loose paint on the walls.
I want to cry in front of her, but we both know just how hard that can be.
This silence between us is a constant
ringing in my ears that I cannot
shut out Mom,
it's deafening Mom,
can you hear me? Mom,
can't you understand that this noise is the only sound echoing these walls? Mom,
when you ask me
how I'm doing, I reply,
"Fine."
Dec 23, 2015
Dec 23, 2015 at 11:23 PM UTC
I've spent the past four nights thinking about two things: how I should be missing you and how empty my chest feels when I realize I can't.
Most days I succumb to the loneliness. My heart pounds so loudly in my hollow chest that I hope it's loud enough for you to hear, a tiphany drum of regret banging in your head. Time is spent wishing the bones inside of me would decompose into the earth. At least if I turned into a flower you would think I was beautiful.
There are some days where I stand tall enough to catch a glimpse of the world in your eyes, a jubilant glimmer of hope, and for a moment I can see myself, a mere ember to your spark. But you've gotten used to sinking down to my level so often that when you peer into my eyes, there is an absence, a lack of light.
I can't miss you.
I'm sorry.
I try, but I can't. I swear I didn't lie when I
said I loved you, I meant every ******* word. Lately the world has gotten the best of me, stripping me of my vocabulary and now all I say sounds like white noise.
I hurt myself to feel what it's like to feel.
There's an ache in my chest where you should be, but you're too busy filling yourself with my memory.
I wish I could just forget you.
Jul 3, 2015
Jul 3, 2015 at 12:59 AM UTC
I sometimes stumble on words,
And I know they hurt
But I sometimes cannot say
what I mean to say,
and the words just get jumbled against my teeth.
Sometimes my thoughts just won't settle for weeks,
And I never know if it's my temporary insanity
or my perpetual restlessness,
That keeps tears streaming down my cheeks.
Even in the most inappropriate of times
I'm seen biting my lip and purging my mind,
And praying to every god in existence,
that my words will
For once, just come out right.
Words are such hurtful creatures
That never fail to reach us
where it really stings,
Deep in the pit of our stomachs
where our nerves sing
And where the words they live,
and fight to be kind.
But let's face it, our words never come out right.
And all I can taste is the regret in my mouth
and the blood on my tongue
And we're both far too young
to feel as if our world is already over when it's only begun.
And we're just beginning to breathe
and walk and arrange our talk,
In ways we simply hope can be beneficial to good communication.
Because what else exists in our day
other than misconstrued words and broken phrases.
I sometimes stumble on words
And they try to be kind,
but sometimes they just aren't quite right.
Kind of similar to my mind, and how it runs in circles
For words that are worthless at the end of the day,
when actions in fact speak louder than hurtful words.
Isn't that what our mother's teach us,
when we're so offended to learn
that light up sneakers
are not what they used to be and suddenly we aren't cool anymore.
Sticks and stones may break our bones,
But words will forever break us.
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 6:11 PM UTC
Your smile could paint my entire existence
white
Because you are everything in the spectrum, reflecting
what it means to be human.
I'm black
darkening your days,
clouding up your canvas
Empty void
of the negative.
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 6:09 PM UTC
Truth is, there is nothing poetic about sadness, anger or numbness.
It's your eyes looking at the faceless, and artificial sheen of objects around you. It is the sugar in cold coffee and tea settling at the bottom, as your thoughts flit in and out of your eye-lashes.
Hoping you can still be tied at the very jaggered edges of this universe.
& yet, we write anyway.
For the truth we hide, hide and never seek will be black, navy, blue on those blank pages.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 2:06 PM UTC
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! -- The furrow
Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks ----
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else
Hauls me through air ----
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
White
Godiva, I unpeel ----
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry
Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 8:34 PM UTC
I've been trying to fill the void in my
heart
that tore me apart
when you left.
Convinced myself that
countless nights
of empty gas tanks
and coffee cups
would make me forget you
Now here I sit with a
dead engine
of a heart
And a buzz in my head that isn't just from
the caffeine confidence
but the words you said to me
before you left.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 10:19 AM UTC
Once in a while you'd call me regret,
wonder out the door and lose your way outside.
But I'd wait by the window,
all morning and each unbearable night of limbo.
And when dawn broke through the window and
the light illuminated the trail on your skin;
you would appear on the doorstep ashamed and keen
on me.
I think it's now routine but I don't mind the times because
I've mapped love marks on the atlas of your skin knowing
you'll want to come back once you've seen the x marks the spot.
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 5:46 PM UTC
I've spent my teenage years disliking myself.
There's this space in my chest where my heart should be, but all I feel is the ghosts of my past / present / future clawing away at my fragile bones
Begging for an escape.
When people ask me if I'm okay, I've adopted the occupation of ballerina
rehearsing and teaching the muscles
of my face to stay
poised and pretty
my lips bent upward at 45 degrees.
If the self help books say to love your body like a temple,
then why does mine feel like it's in ruins?
I am a deity of disgust,
a demigod of self loathing,
the omniscient voice of my own oppression.
If other people can be happy for me,
then why the hell can't I just be happy
for myself?
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 5:45 PM UTC
I'm staring up at the ceiling
again
Thinking of ways I could
fix myself
Permanent removal
from a temporary life.
Coincidentally, I saw your eyes
before I last blinked mine
Let's be honest, I was willing
to go
If it meant
you'd look at me the same.
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 5:23 PM UTC