I didn't get to school today
I woke up
usual time
and lay still
my arms felt like they were
strapped to the bed
my legs felt like the bones
had been replaced with lead
my shoulder sunk into the matress
and my head was stuffed with
cotton or water
I wasn't able to move
so I cried
and after a while
of crying I finally lifted a shoulder
nothing was wrong with me
but the weight
I just couldn't move


look what depression is doing to me
how am I meant to live through this?

synapses firing
sleep, so smooth, is lost

carpet stained, walls talk
voices cleave, claw, claim

a love has been found

infer: ephemeral, impermanent
believe: indelible, predestined

bruised knuckles knock, knock, knock
and one rock, rock, rocks
back and forth

"the moon," he calls her
the moon; he claims her

a world lies between

The sea is deep but he can swim.

All the poems I see are sad.
I hit shuffle for the hundredth time,
Hoping not to see the word "gone" or "pain" or "alone."
Once again, I am disappointed.
Yes, I get it.
We turn to poetry when our souls are darkest
To release our insecurities under anonymity
To see the yellow lightning bolt shouting,
"Someone cares!"
Into your darkness.
And this is all right.

But there is also joy in this earth.
There are weird moments when I feel happy
Even though I don't have a boyfriend
And my best friend isn't talking to me
And it's grey and bleak outside.
In these moments of inexplicable happiness,
There is just as much poetry
As there is in the moments
Of inexplicable sorrow.

I didn’t doubt that truth was a liar
your “I love you”s tasted sweet
but poison a king will happily eat is usually hidden in delicous foods
and he will exclaim it tastes delightful unaware he is dying
I didn’t doubt the stars we’re on fire
I could feel their warmth from the ground
I could feel the burning flame in your touch on my leg, on my soft, unloved cheeks
I saw the burn marks on my body
I doubted that you loved me I
saw the emptyness in your eyes and I felt it in my heart
I searched for something in your words
there was nothing
It wasn’t maddness that took you away from me
I was a kiss on the stairwell to you
You were a kiss under the covers to me
You stabbed my father
You stabbed me over and over
the field of flowers were more promising
than whatever your revenge could give me
The arms of the river were safer than yours.

Before I ever went to school
I thought I knew it all
I could count to ten and back again
And bounce a rubber ball

I could spell my name with no mistakes,
Knew 1 and 1 is 2,
Knew how to say the alphabet
And how to tie my shoe.

Then I went to school and found I didn’t know a lot.
There was so much stuff I had to know I mostly just forgot.
Music, art, and English, physics, bio, French, and math.
Social studies, history, so much stuff it made me laugh.

My younger self had no idea how much more there was to know
The more I aged the more I knew the more I’d learn and grow.
When I finished high school I was smarter than before
I knew I didn’t know it all so I went back to learn some more.
  
This time when I went to school I wasn’t so naïve.
I knew I’d have to hit the books in order to achieve.
If grade school was confusing I figured college would be worse.
If I was going to expand my mind I should expect a lot of work.

There was a lot more subjects and they took a lot more time.
I wondered how there could be room to store so much knowledge into just one mind.
You know that feeling that you get when there’s so much knowledge you feel as though
If they feed you any more of it your head just might explode?
My mind was like a barrel that was filled up past the brim with rocks
And when you tried to add one more, then two would trickle off.
I thought that I would have to quit but there was still so much I didn’t know.
But I chose to stay though doom seemed near because I didn’t want to go.

With failure in my future I bit my lip and I pressed on.
In time I noticed something odd, some of the rocks were gone.
But the rocks had not been falling out as I tossed more in from my hand
They simply had begun to change from rocks right into sand.

All these things I knew
Were now all becoming one
Witch made more room for knowing more
And knowing once more was fun

It wasn’t like when I was small
And thought I knew it all.
But the ease of it was similar
I felt more on the ball.

I recalled before I went to school
And 4 things that I knew:
Spell my name, and 1+1,
ABCs, and tie my shoe.

The one main thing that I know now
That I didn’t know before
This list of things I knew is 2
It isn’t really 4.

Because I know my adding
It is very clear to see
I tie with laces 1 and 2
Not laces 1 and 3.

I spell my name with no mistakes
Because I know my ABCs.
It doesn’t mean that I know less
I just know with much more ease.

At first the more you know and know
The bigger is the mess.
But when it comes together
The load becomes much less

For when your barrel is so full
You think it will explode
The rocks will blend together
And you’ll have more room to grow.