I am so tired
And it's the kind of tiredness
That no amount of sleep or rest
Can ever cure or ease
World weary is what I am

All my life
For as long as I can remember
I've been fighting for or against
Something
Anything
I only knew the fight

Bodies become battered and broken
And minds become anxious and paranoid
But both of these can be fixed
However
When a soul becomes worn and diminished
Medication does not help

                                            By Phil Roberts

Emotions hit the hardest, at the things we keep hidden.

We're dying to live and yet we're living to die.

To smile
Not knowing
Whether you mean it
It hurts

My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.