"I can't"
  &
"I don't know"
             These are two
       Very common phrases
       I find myself using a lot
              These days.
      Maybe it's due to the fact
That I don't want
       To
           Try;
     I'm starting to
     Believe
     That I'm afraid
     Of moving on.

Here I am, looking up causes for headaches
at 1 am
when I know it will always come back to you.
My hands found the bottom of the ocean
as I cleaned old movie tickets out of my car today.
I can see your honesty from here.
It took my composure on its way out the door.
I’m not bitter anymore.
I’m just tired.
And I’m tired of being so tired.
I’m sorry you didn’t stay.
I’m sorry that I apologize
for all the times you didn’t.
I keep forgetting these things
are not one-sided,
and so,
I’m sorry I gave you everything
for nothing in return.
You tasted like love,
and I was parched.
Still am.

You know it's true
when I say that I never stopped
having feelings for you.
I've been waiting so long to give you these
words, but yet, I've been waiting even longer for yours.

Maybe I'm the selfish one.

Want doesn't have to be in the past tense.
Because one thing is for certain,
I want you just the same.

Remember the time I kissed you when I shouldn't have?
Remember the time we danced?
Remember the stars?
Remember how dangerous and passionate it all seemed?

I'll never forget...
Because as you went with Autumn,
all the colors went with you,
leaving nothing but the white powder of emptiness.  

I ache for your skin
and desire your lips...

Maybe, I'm just a hopeless romantic,
and maybe this changes nothing,
but you too, are my
weakness.

I don't know much,
but I can tell you what "whole" looks like.
I've seen it stumble forward
with weary eyes and tired hands.
Come close,
I will hand you a mirror
and tell you to look carefully.
Can you not hear the galaxies
beneath your skin?
They paint in whispers
that even oceans cannot grasp.
I know it took a hurricane and two floods,
but there is soil in your ribcage;
your scars told me so.
Don't mind them though,
they're just reminders
that you love harder than anyone else.
I know you might feel hollow,
but there is a reason your heart
has lofted ceilings.
Never forget how you fought
for all that space.
Look carefully.
These gray skies inside your lungs
are simply a canvas,
and you rain so beautifully.
Oh darling,
you rain so beautifully.

Empathy is a curse,
but apathy is surely worse.
Make me feel something when I feel hollow.
Get away from me when it's too hard to swallow.

Everyone talks about depression as if they know it.  

But what they don’t know is that depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway,

it’s feeling the blood dripping down your skin and having the sick thought of  “Oh, look how beautiful the red is” (they always say red is my color).

Depression is lying on your bed for hours on end, salt tracks lining your face like the scars on your ankles, staring at your ceiling tracing patterns in the paint and accepting death in life with this hole in your chest because death is a reward, an escape from this pain you deserve to feel.

Depression is writing sick poetry on skin and publishing it with scars, cutting on ankles, not wrists because you’re scared you’ll get in trouble but you so desperately need to be seen, and never are.

Depression is writing the word “alone” and seeing the word “home”, accepting the pain like a gift because you deserve it.

Depression is admitting suicidal thoughts to paper and not to people, and loving the broken things, hoping to tie them together, thinking maybe things will get better, but knowing that’s just wishful thinking.

Depression is hearing your mother call you monster and disgusting through the too-thin walls of your door when she thinks you can’t hear, and then telling you to your face that you have no right to cry, as if sadness is a privilege and you’re so pathetic that you don’t deserve it.

Depression is shutting yourself up in your room and hearing your family laughing downstairs because you feel like you can’t be a part of them and learning at a young age to love family always but that family isn’t always love

Depression is wanting to take love and your heart and break them into tiny little pieces and throw them into waves, to throw them away

Depression is a foot when the shoe hasn’t been broken in yet, is you when you haven’t broken life in, is seeing happy people and thinking they all look the same, like the front covers of magazines with smiles reaching their eyes when yours can’t.

Depression is wishing you could package your smiles into tiny little piles and hand them to people more deserving of them because you know you’re wasting them with half-assed lines of “I’m fine”

Depression is having to view your past as if it wasn’t yours, because to accept it as reality is to accept finality of your life through suicide.

Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway and when you close the door out of fear it keeps pounding, possessive, ******, and when you open the door out of anger you shout, “I’M SCARED” to thin air but your voice comes out as a whisper.

Every day
I get just
A little bit
               further
               down
this path
I'm walking

And I'm
beginning to
     feel
as if,
nothing will
ever.

Stop me.

I am writing these poems
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.
So please excuse the handwriting
Which may not be too clear.
But this afternoon by the lion's cage
I'm afraid I got too near.
And I'm writing these lines
From inside a lion,
And it's rather dark in here.

If I told you that you're perfect,
would you believe it's true?
No, of course not. I mean, maybe so,
but it wouldn't be enough for you.
Just one man's opinion;
you need global recognition
to prove that you have value.

It makes me kind of sad,
but I've never had ambition of that sort,
so if you'd like, I could help you.
We could make it work.

With your style, and grace,
(and those big brown eyes, and that beautiful face)
along with my words,
(your silk ribbon of a voice)
and my keyboard;
I swear to God we could make it work.

A partnership to stack the cards:
Aimless Asteroid and Shooting Star.
You'll always burn brighter, but I don't care.
I swear,
together we could go far.