Let me post a selfie
how's my hair
makeup
angle
filter
how do I look
did I get likes yet?
Let me post a status
one about how much I love my besties
another on how I learned a new lesson
now here's a photo of my breakfast
I have to comment
like
poke
post new updates
every day
becuase that's just what you do nowadays,
that's just how it goes
because we're all so afraid
if we don't keep posting
if we don't get those likes
and invites
and pokes
and fill up our messages
and notifications,
that we're going to be forgotten.
That if we don't solidify our presence
on social media
then we don't have a presence at all.
We spend so much time
trying to make other people
think we exist,
that we never end up existing at all,
not really.
We don't need all these people
and confirmations
to tell us we exist.
we already do.
If only it weren't so easy to forget that.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword
If this is true then God was the sword and you were a pen
And I was the pencil who laid you a foundation of erased mistakes only for you to trace upon them as if they didn't exist.
And I was cast in the bottom of some cluttered bag
while you were gently capped and placed in a box lined with blue silk,
And you knew I would always be there to test the waters before you spilled the pages with your brash delicacy.
But you needed me and I craved you for completion.
Together we created sweeping illustrations and lengthy novels with dozens of sequels.
We depicted a tale of modern love in our ball-pointed journey.
But my graphite stayed intact while your ink started to run out.
I could see as our pages unfolded that your colors no longer spread as boldly.
You became more and more invisible as I desperately etched harder and harder into every page hoping to give you clearer guidelines
but you no longer had it in you.
And soon enough we couldn't make anything beautiful.
You had run out.
And I'm still hopelessly drawing maps desperate that you can regain what you once had and use the indentations on previously blank pages to find your way back to me.

My father made a new friend
Mother does not approve of.
Draped in orange and white,
bears a fire in her he cannot handle.

But with lips pressed against her
he took in her hidden ugliness.
She was too clingy.
He said,
"I can't breathe."

Those three words became the worst we'd ever heard
right behind
"You have cancer."

Time became a distant tune;
waiting,
waiting,
waiting.

My father has expiration dates
tattooed under his eyelids.
He plans his funeral like the 50th birthday party he will never get
but there will be too much blurry vision and black,
no one will know the difference.

To the kid that no one sits with at lunch
To the kid that has no friends
To the kid that can't feel love
To the kid that forgot how to smile
To the kid whose parents say "why'd I have to have one like this?"

To the kid who has to inflict pain to know they're still alive
To the kid who's in an endless cycle of depression
To the kid who has funky colored hair
To the kid who has no hair
To the kid that gets battered and bruised for who they are

To the kid that yearns for attention they never get
To the kid that can't think straight
To the kid that isn't straight
To the kid that can't feel what life should be

Depression. That's all you feel
You can no longer tell what's fake and what's real
And the voices in your head-the real you is what they conceal
They tell you to pick up that knife
That's what'll make it better
So you bleed and you scream
and you plead and you try to deem
What's right and what's wrong
But in the end, is anything really....right?

Put down the knife and think back....
You're here for a reason
And no matter what that reason may be, you serve a purpose
If you think long enough, that image might start to surface
You're here for a reason...

I am the Reaper.
All things with heedful hook
Silent I gather.
Pale roses touched with the spring,
Tall corn in summer,
Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms--
Reaping, still reaping--
All things with heedful hook
Timely I gather.

I am the Sower.
All the unbodied life
Runs through my seed-sheet.
Atom with atom wed,
Each quickening the other,
Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless
Ceaselessly sowing,
Life, incorruptible life,
Flows from my seed-sheet.

Maker and breaker,
I am the ebb and the flood,
Here and Hereafter.
Sped through the tangle and coil
Of infinite nature,
Viewless and soundless I fashion all being.
Taker and giver,
I am the womb and the grave,
The Now and the Ever.