Once the depression becomes routine,
Happiness never really feels comfortable again.
It comes around
now and then,
like an old friend.
You laugh and drink
and reminisce about all the plans you had that never panned out.
All the hope you invested,
in the jobs, the relationships, the dreams and goals.
And you laugh at how foolish you once were for ever having such ideas.
But the laughter dies out
And your smile fades
And you know in the back of your mind
that soon, your happiness will be gone again,
and you can never quite forgive it for leaving.
You cant blame it,
All you ever did was hold it back.
Maybe somebody else could make better use of it.
And the depression,
Well the depression is no Stranger.

As I lay awake in wait.
Before the sun is up to start the day.
Creating radiance for all to behold.
Darkness will be waiting, watching.
Though the sun won't let go.

**-N.C.

He is used to waking most
mornings, and there is nothing.
No fluttering heart,
no breathing other than his own.
It is better in a way,
knowing what to expect,
come time to meet the day.

At some point in life,
he decided that it was
easier to stop longing
for things that once
made waking something
worth looking forward to.

Those tired hopes and
those memories aching
with romantic sentimentality
never did serve any real
purpose other than to
foster eventual solitude.

Writing is all that he
allows himself now,
the only recourse back
to that ancient past
full of magic and great
soul-shattering loves.

He both loves and
hates the nothing of
these mornings,
just as he loves
and hates this fire
that has almost gone out.

So Christmas is over for another year,
with a melancholy sigh, Santa sheds a tear,
cold and alone in his winter house
no creature will stir, not even a mouse
seeks the warmth of a flickering flame
in lowly silence, it’s always the same,
the incumbent darkness behind his back
the sepia shape of his empty sack
his crimson hat now hangs from the door,
the coat of fur slung on the floor
a furrowed brow is all that is cast
as he sits and remembers Christmases past.

I carry my backpack, and the addition thirty pounds of stress that goes along with it.
I carry an MP3 player, filled with 1500 songs that make more sense to me than any math lesson ever has.
I carry a necklace from the 1800's that no one in my family cares enough about to remember who it originally belonged to. We both carry the feeling of being passed along.
I carry a notebook with letters I'll never have the nerve to send. I carry a pen that's been through more with me than any of my friends.
I carry my scraped knees and a tendency to fall to the waste side.
I carry my father's temper like a hot coal in the pit of my stomach. I carry his high expectations and my mother's victim complex. All three of which are, apparently, hereditary.
I carry Chapstick, Neosporin, and band-aids. Because things crack, and things break, and some things tend to cut.
I carry the same mindset as an Oxford comma and a worry of being replaced. We both carry the feeling of not really mattering.
I carry my uncle's divorce, & the way we buried him only a year after the papers were signed. I carry the way his ex wife's grudge is stronger than her children's love for their family.
I carry the dream catcher my dad keeps in his room, the one I got rid of years ago when I realized nothing would keep my nightmares away.
I carry the time my hero had his heart broken and spent the next year at the bottom of a bottle.
I carry the headstone that marks the beginning of my abandonment issues.
I carry a .037 fl oz tube of eyeliner in the hopes that no one will mess with a girl who always looks like she has two black eyes.
I carry a pre-med major that will never make me as happy as it will make my parents. I carry my family's hopes on my back & the way I feel like an emergency room with no more room left for patients.
I carry my best friend's name like an obituary I never got to read. I carry the way his head hit his windshield faster than it ever hit my lap, and the way I've hated sitting in the driver's seat ever since. I carry the way I never want to be invited to another funeral & the way each body they've buried makes me feel like I'm already 6 feet under.
I carry the mattress I slept on as a child. Pink flowers & blue satin & cold sweats detergent couldn't fade. The one I spent an entire afternoon scrubbing bloodstains out of, hoping my mother wouldn't notice when she changed the sheets. She never did, or at least she never asked, and sometimes I still wish she had.
I carry how my friend thinks her high school boyfriend breaking up with her is the worst that could happen, and the way I hope she always does.

Bubbly Laughs
Escape my lips
Tasting of champagne
And our kisses
We are in
A(n) (enjoyable) drunken stupor
Having the time of our lives
Just for a fleeting night
Surrounded by fools
Including us too