I write to stay alive,
To release the words that tear my flesh
In their efforts to be born into this world.
I write to leave my mark on the universe
Rather than leaving marks on my skin.
I write to prevent the silence from strangling me
In its utter oppressiveness.
I write to wash the sins out of my body
And the stains off of my hands.
I bleed ink rather than blood
And wax poetic to avoid coveting new scars.
I write because it's the only way I've ever learned
To externalize the humanity that cuts me so deeply.
I write because language saves me from myself.
I write because my very existence depends on it.

I am so lost
In a world that demands I always know
What path my feet pound.
I am seeing ghosts in the mirror,
Memories that follow me
Like I am some sort of light leader.
My face no longer looks the same.
It's shadowed by this sadness,
And I am so tired of feeling like the undead,
Wishing the "un" had never existed in the first place.
I am so lost in a dream I cannot wake up from,
Floating through the air in a twisted mesh of unreality.
I am so lost.
I am so lost.

I've got the January blues,
The Monday heaviness,
A kind of Tuesday Sadness.
I've got the Wednesday empties,
The Thursday lonelies,
And a Friday full of Madness.
Saturdays are cold and grey
While Sundays seem to slip away,
And the week recycles into blandness.

In remembrance of you today,
That you existed and touched this Earth
With loving hands.
Now, we've lost another in a similar way.
Keep him safe as he passes on.
You matter.
You are loved.
In remembrance of you today,
The joy you brought
And the kindness you bestowed.
My grief comes in waves,
But I never regret knowing you.
In remembrance of you today.
I miss you from Earth.

I wish that I could trust my brain
To, at the very least, remain the same,
Forever wed to depression's corner.
In the dark, growing colder.
But now Paranoia like a flower blooms,
And I hear the footsteps as he haunts my room,
Breathes down silky skin of neck
To prove he's there and away I shan't get.
His shadow lurks around every turn,
And he taints the world with smells that burn.
I am lonely in this terror
Of stalker and murderous specter.
I tell them he's coming to get me,
But alas, only I can see him.
I wish that I could trust my brain,
But it makes monsters all the same.

I am the apocalypse,
Blood red sky that hangs over muddy water.
I am the fire that makes ashes
Out of endeavors to be more and better.
I am the poison in the well,
Taint that slithers beneath your skin.
They should've warned you
That the darkest things come in the nicest packages.
Do you dare to open mine?

Sometimes I think that if my heart beats fast enough,
It could outrun this feeling,
Like if I reach a high enough BPM,
I might suddenly feel as if the world makes sense again.
I might not feel like I am drowning
In a vat of electrically charged water
Or trying to plug up the holes from which my emotions keep bleeding.
I think my heart believes that a little tachycardia might cure me,
Might purify me of this pain.
Why else would it speed onwards so?