Tony Luna: Favorites

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Maddy Van Buren

when I was the happiest
I found a glimpse of true friendship
in sparklers and smoke bombs
driving to the town over
to stand in the dark
blasting out our ear drums
I had never had anything like that
before
the days were long
into the night
when I sat on the top of the hill
where my life began
where I thought it ended
the place I gave my heart away twice
I pushed the seat down
and blared the music
I cried for something better
than this
if I only knew
I'd been having fun all along
it was all just a game
I had liked to play too much
until 2 years too late
I sat in an empty apartment
messing the floor with ribbons of red
coming from my wrists
they should have been at my sides
next to the boy whose fingers
were broken
and I held them in mine
and told him
his hands looked like me

#love #harm #depression #illness #hurt #summer #crush #mental #nostalgia

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Criminal

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Emma Elisabeth Wood

Criminal

At what point
did it start?
they ask.

An endless rhetoric,
slyly demanding
unremembered
histories

I don't know.
a simple answer

feelings do not
come into your
heart with
warning

they bang on
your rib cage,
a dull echo
shuddering through
your body

I am not
a moment
captured in
a photograph

stained sepia,
a sliced negative

It did not
start with
the click
of a clock

stopping the
hour hand
at twelve

it consumed me,
slowly. The sea
does not devour
the sand with a
single wave

it is the
onslaught of
sadness creeping
into your blood

a parasite,
a lowering of
cells

it is
criminal,
and I am it's
victim

as you try
to execute
my misery
with pills

(electric shocks)

crisp white sheets,
pulled so tight
they feel like bandages.

Wrapping around my limbs
until I am paralysed
with emptiness

one bed, one desk,
one chair

a tick sheet of
sorrow that I am
now pinned
to

like a butterfly,
living for only
one day

but pressed and
preserved

indefinitely

#depression #illness #sadness #mental

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

i've never told anyone this before

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Lucid

i've never told anyone this before

"She says, 'It's only in my head.'
She says, 'Shh, I know it's only in my head."

I was baptized when I was four years old
except it didn't turn out like most baptisms do.
It was a backwards baptism,
my childish innocence was left floating in the bath water like dead skin
and I stepped out bathed in sin.
Reborn in sin.
Seeds of sin
planted into my growing body
by the man with the face like Jesus.
"**** on it like a lollipop", he said
trying to appeal to the childish innocence
that he unknowingly stole
just moments before.

I did as he said
obedient child that I was.
I didn't know the difference then
like I do now
but the difference doesn't even matter anymore.
When you plant corrupted seeds
you grow a corrupted tree.

Now I wake up with blood under my fingernails
from trying to shed the hate
branded into my skin.
Now I'm constantly fighting a civil war
between the devil and god
raging inside of me.
Now I feel guilty for who I have become
because I never knew how innocence felt.
Now my poisoned mind only knows to yield
to the sinful whispers
that float inside my head
whenever I close my eyes.

I may have lost my innocence
but I guess
I didn't lose my obedience.

"But the ******* the car in the parking lot
says, 'Man, you should try to take a shot.
Can't you see my walls are crumbling?'
Then she looks up at the building
says she's thinking of jumping
says she's tired of life.
She must be tired of something."

We talk just like lions
but we sacrifice like lambs
'Round here
she's slipping through my hands

#love #heartbreak #sad #depression #illness #depressed #demons #are #mental #inside

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Emetophobia

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Last Arpeggios

Emetophobia

It’s the season of sickness.
The ruminant roars,
disarms me with hunger,
Feeds me

poison, contagious
violence; ****** of my
Control, spiller of
my Secret:

‘I am gross.’
Bathroom lights stare at me,
Toilet flushes betray my ears.
Only Courage,

Hanging on
the edge of a lash, leaking
with every pause of breath,
can save me.

written October 2016

#fear #illness #anxiety #sickness #emetophobia

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

The Dead Weight on Your Shoulders

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Snotty VX

The Dead Weight on Your Shoulders

The moment, when it all comes down at once
The weight comes crashing into your back, snapping your spine in two.
Struggling to breathe as you put all of your strength into holding it up
It takes mental strength. You forgot to work out last night.
Trying to keep from tripping on your own feet.
Eventually, it gives away, falling on top of you.
Comes out in clots, clots of sentiments and emotions,
Spat out by the gray scribbles which slither through your mind.
Controlling you, Every time you encounter another being with supposed intellect
The sweat pooling up in your clenched palms, shivers rolling down your neck
Struggling, violently but silently, not to let more of it pour out onto the ground.
Not to be crushed dead.
Every scream is a whisper, every whisper is a scream.
Anything audible goes through in radio static.
The expressions, their questioning expressions.. They glance for a second then excuse the phenomenon.
All you can do is look at the ground, choke on your breaths
Hold on to your chest, press the “clear” button.
The moment, when it all comes down at once.

#illness #anxiety #mental #stress #panic

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Midnight Madness

Nov 2016 Tony Luna

Ntwari

Midnight Madness

Why does my room suddenly feel bigger
Almost empty,
The silence of this void
So deafening
Now that you're gone?

Only one light remains here now
"11:11", the clocks beams
Its light swallowed by whatever darkness consumes the room
And the night's silence was shattered by your voice
"Make a wish", I could still hear you say

I could stand my room no longer
So, here I am outside remembering you
Or forgetting
I don't know anymore

These streets are so cold and lonesome
Without you to keep me warm
Without you counting the passing flakes
Or even joining them in their dance

Now to venture these streets
With nostalgia and madness
As my only companions

True sadness masked by fiction. It was a year ago but it still haunts me (mildly though).

#broken #sad #depression #lonely #sadness #death #loss #past #you #madness