to the author, in the light of day:

this is real.
the pain, the strain,
the loss - sans gain;
so many words
I here congeal,
I swear to you
that this is real

My mind is everywhere and nowhere
So close to nothingness
It would have
Could have
Ended right there

Drowsy eyes fight their heavy lids
The plant guts cool the pain                
This brings back memories of us as kids
I will never skip sunscreen again

I float through memories
Weightless as rocks
I gaze at the darkened skies
Even in the cloudied gloom
I can see the light
I wish on the lonely star
I clench my eyes to conjure my dreams
I return my stare to the skies
The star has moved on.

Nothing is wrong with me.
Everything is wrong with me.
My family is healthy.
There is a roof over my head.
I have never wanted anything.
Except, of course, to be dead.

Alone in a world of people
It's easy enough to be.
All you have to do
Is follow after me.
Step back from all the ones you love
And never tell them why.
Avoid contact with all, in fact,
And never say
Goodbye.

Seeking help and telling truths
are only a beginning.
It's much more difficult to be frank
And allow a leap of faith
Here, have my soul and please,
don't share it or tear it?
It's happened before and now
I'm hopelessly helplessly stuck.
****.

Since day one, I erased the term "can't".
I did or did not.
There was no can't.
Yet here I am.
I need this
And I can't handle it.

I envy the birds of the wind
Casually coasting above all the chaos and confusion
They are the child's innocence
Paired with their wonder and their wiles

Although once lost, you can still see them
You will never be as you've been

Their feet and feathers leave traces
Of what would and could have been
But no matter the collection you amass
You can never be as you've been

For only once you relinquish control
Unto the waxing stars
Can you succumb to honest peace
And learn to live with your scars

I bit those traitorous lips,
Cursing silently the ****** honesty.
Nervously tracing my fingertips
Along the seams of the faded jean.
Averting my eyes, I try and disguise
My fear as pure disgust.
But try as I might, I can not fight        
The bubbling sense of mistrust.        
                                          
I try to calm my quivering nerves
By breathing slow and sure
But nothing can quench
My shivering rage
I can not find a cure.

My world has spun out of control
And nothing is within my reach.
There is nothing I can do
But allow the law to sweep me away.
                                                  
I tried and failed to my dismay
But to my parents' glee.
And to all the others
That attempted to help me.

The man they paid for me to trust
So rapidly turned away
It's just his job but still I felt
As if I'd been betrayed.

Unwillingly I lift my gaze          
To linger on the wall
Where once, before, I stood            
Quietly alone, but tall.
I feebly resent the way I feel
So overwhelmingly small.

I've constructed a highway
Over years and years
I've spent time blazing forward
Not daring to turn back
Mile after mile of groundwork
I've laid my track
and now that I've fallen I turn and I see
I've built no platform to save me from me

Brave
Courageous
Loved by all
Only after we fall.
In life we are
Fragile
Depressive
Unstable.
Able to change yet
Unwilling to try
Nobody knows until
The day that you die

The screen lights up
So does my world
A simple snap
A brief frame
Reminding me
I am still sane
I can do this
I should try that      
It's hard, I say    
You say it's ok    
The picture fades
I wipe my eyes  
It goes away
Part of me dies

Here's a piece of paper with gold embossing.
Go make something of yourself.
Be what you want.
Fulfill your wildest dreams!
But not that.

How many times have I come to this Add Poem page, craving release, a freedom from the overwhelming feelings whipping me about? And how many times have I typed line after line, struggling to make sense of something, anything? It seems as soon as I slow my cathartic typing, all of my feelings prove empty and worthless and crudely scrawled. And I watch as I erase my thoughts, character by character until I return to the intimidating blank screen. I piece myself back together as best as I can and I press on, each time losing hold of yet another fragment of my rapidly dwindling perserverance.

Words of encouragement
Are vaguely detected
but language of hope
is viciously deflected.

Never make a promise that you don't intend to keep
Never try to bother me when I'm counting sheep
For you have failed me yet again
So let me dream in peace
Until the day that you can say you truly love your niece

Surrounded and cornered
My eyes searching wildly
Sweat beads upon my lip
I am trapped.
With nowhere left to run,
I freeze.
Slowly,
a
Smile
Plays
Upon
My
Lips.
My captors are taken aback.
What have we missed?
They question.
Now is their turn to feel frantic.
I drop my shoulders.
I lean against the wall.
I draw myself up taller
Taller
And taller yet.
The grimace widens into a grin.
As I defiantly raise my chin.
They search my empty eyes,
Roving for some unknown punch-line.
Finding none, they tense.
Only I,
and I alone,
Can ever control myself.
Nothing they say
Nothing they do
Nothing they threaten
Can ever turn me
Away from myself.
I am my own person
And that,
That
Terrifies them.
Sensing the shift
They turn and flee.
They flee away from
Me.

Flounder.
Flounder?
I am floundering to write something
Something of worth
A flounder is a fish
And Ariel's best friend
But Flounder isn't a flounder in the movie
Or the television series
What IS he?
Ariel calls him a guppy when he's scared
Or trying to stay locked in his comfort zone
there!
I've abandoned my comfort zone recently
No.
My shell was forcefully removed
In part by my own hand
But mostly not
It was painful
It still is painful
But here I am
And I tied myself into the poem
I did it
Did I?

Help.
Why is that so difficult?
How can four letters freeze my tongue
And quicken my heart?
What about that deserves the power to shut me up and crumble again?
Help.

I want to suspend
Like stars in a planetarium
Or jellyfish in the ocean
Just be moved by gentle motions or violent starbursts
Never exert energy and never think
Just be
Feeling without thought an ideal
Thought butchers feel
I may drift into sleep
And all will be looming when I wake
Tomorrow
And tomorrow
And tomorrow ever after

I forged an armor from my silence
To protect and deflect from the others
But in shielding myself from these
I was walled away from the world

I denied myself much in my silence
And I lost dear friends through my lies
But now opportunities are sliding
To forge relationships that won't die.

I recognize many of my errors
I know that I have been wrong
Yet still I sit here in silence
As the world around me moves on.

There was a breach in the system
A leak
Of unimaginable magnitude
- for them.
For me it was inevitable
But I wallowed in my denial
Until the seam tore and all of me spilled out
The shade spread rapidly,
Seeping through each minute
And permeating each day
Until the Professionals drew out a truth
My own ****** honesty clad me in chains
They bound me to life in a way
Inflicting the pains and more strain
I was alive
But with nothing to gain.

It's the simple things that we rush through most
We use manners and niceities
But forget true gratitude.
Today, the concept of peace is simply overwhelming
Yet overwhelmingly simple.
It is the moment of vague clarity
Or the sudden awareness of a changed sameness.
Peaceful minds are content but hardly ever so.
To be ever relaxed is a mere facade
But reflection is essential
And to love and be loved is a gift.
For without the appreciation of the insignificant
How could anyone find tranquility in the significant?

All they want is to be there for me
But no matter how I try
All of their good wishes
Only ever make me cry.
I need to be alone I say
I only need a day.
Weeks later they return again
And then they wonder, Why?
They coax and smile their pity grins
Telling me to lift my chin.
Things will get better,
I will move on.
But then again I am already
Gone.

Once upon a time
I was consumed by passion  
It enveloped me entirely
It spread to those around me

Once upon a time
I was a motivating force
I dried eyes and evoked smiles
I made a difference

Once upon a time
Everything changed

There are no words to describe the loss of family. The moment you wake up and realize that the people you have spent your life with have finally crumbled beneath the pressure. The loss of security and unity and friendship. All anyone can manage is to mask the fracture with a smile. It happens. We aren't anything special. But the weight of acknowledging the shift is frightening and miserable and lonely.

Stories told to children,
Deceitful promises of a beautiful future
When the child is introduced to the
Stark disappointment of reality,
What can we expect?

I've been long removed from myself
Busied by this
Distracted with that
Hoping I've come to terms with myself
I glance into the mirror
And I crumble into 46 pieces
Each one more indistinguishable than the next
I am afraid and alone and afraid
So I am not okay
And it's not okay
But that doesn't change anything
Because I can't be okay
I haven't the time or the energy to spend being anything less than fine
I'm a mess
And not in the I-have-2-huge-papers-due-Monday sort of way
But more like the miserable worthless emptiness is all consuming and I feel too much and none of it is worth feeling
And I'm questioning the little bits that I had chosen to cling to so desperately
I am unsure and confused and terrified
Alone and afraid and alone
It's this vicious cycle of trying to be with people, being with people and feeling like an unnecessary presence, nodding my head dumbly without contributing anything of value to the interaction, then returning to my alone with an even further degraded feeling
I am hurt and it is hard
And I have been told that I am strong
I do not feel strong
I feel very weak and helpless and hopeless and scared. I am a child alone in the darkness shaking from the nightmare that I can't wake from
I try to be strong and supportive
I help other people as much as I can, I try to give and give and give and I am empty but I feel so I keep on giving what I don't have and I'm drained and hollow and I still need to keep giving because what if I stop what if I stop I can't stop giving because then what would happen I would cease to be and that terrifies me I can't stop but I can't continue and I am alone and afraid and I have people that care about me and that makes me feel one million and three percent worse about myself because for whatever reason there are people that give a **** about me and I love them for that but couldn't they just not care at all wouldn't that be easier if no one cared at all????? My feelings do not align with my thoughts. I know one thing and feel all the others. I hurt and I hurt and I feel and it is striking. I want to make beauty out of this muck that I so rarely allow myself to acknowledge. People have made beauty and colors from this emptyness then here I am with my head full of snot and the salt tracks sticky on my face as I'm breathing through my mouth which I hate and I just type nonsense into this meaningless emptiness and I stop. I'm hurting and I hate it. Other people are hurting and I hate it. The world is hurting and I don't understand how everyone doesn't hate it. I say hate too often, it's a word best reserved for Hope. Hope is the ******* that deprives in the same breath with which it revives. I **** its promise of future as surely as it damns me.

Fictional characters
In worlds of their own
Are eager and willing to
Welcome me home
As I reach for a spine    
My own skin tingles          
I can feel our lives
Are ready to mingle        
The delicate pages
Turn gently in hand
In my mind's eye
I can hear the band
The crowds are all rowdy
But brimming with glee
And all, my dear reader,
Are waiting for me.

the pulse that used to encourage me
now vainly reminds me I'm here      
i pass off words of encouragement
that simply deflect off my ears      
I'm so far gone that the ones I love
Now only bring me to tears        
How do i continue to wage this war
and fight off all these years?

I sit in the dark.
I hear the cricket's lonesome chirp.
I smell the burnt popcorn wafting from my brother's lap.
I hear his sour words of hate
"I hope you die''
On loop until, again, I cry.
Not because of the hateful words.
Not because he meant them.
Not because my mother did not resent them
But just because
I
                Agree.

Aching of loneliness
Hollow as isolation,
Guilty of weakness
Bubbled in distress

i didn’t see it coming
they broke down a barrier
years in the making
as it stands now
nothing would keep me
from pressing the blade
deep into my skin
for once i’d succeed
if ever i freed myself
from this bed

I'm in class.
Every paper flip
Every cough
Sends me further
Recessing into my mind
I hike the Alps
I visit Mars
Time is called.
My mind is lost in space.

The world is an oyster
But it is not mine
I'm only one person
I'm only one mind
I'm only one second
In the concept of time
I really don't matter
It's quite clear to see        
But I matter forever
Since I matter to me

When two siblings broke away
their parents slowly faded    
Reuniting only for two funerals
they split their lands and went their ways    
The children, young and observant,
Watched and saw and learned
The conflict continued a generation later
And fingers pointed to her.  
Her head had slowly lowered
Her hair fell past her eyes
Her smile only served her
As a crude disguise
They scolded her and warned her
if she didn't change her ways
that all of those around her
would slowly turn away
but as the words slipped past their mouths they stuttered in dismay
the little girl they learned to hate
had already gone away.

Indecision-
It has plagued me for near two decades;
And then, with frivolous concerns.

Which restaurant?
Which color?
What matter?
It doesn't.
It didn't.

And now
Now I am presented with this;
Preserve memory?
Or preserve perseverance?

Many will scoff,
'What use is memory without perseverance?'
Yet what is the point of persevering
Sans memories?

Over the years I've been stripped
Of hopes
Of dreams
Of the very life force that doesn't exist.

Throughout all things,
I've retained my memories.

I am the memories I keep.

My whole being balances for
the songs we sang
the people I've known
the stories I've heard
and the trials I've thrown.

Subtract these and you are left with an emptied carcass
A hollowed branch or
Dry-rotted root;

Others may see their past glory
But the carcass
The branch
The root
Are nothing more that memories

And what are memories
To the memoryless?

24 hours on four chicken nuggets
And an hour of compiled conversation
A roommate's fit in the middle of the street
She's drunk, screaming for chipotle,
A flailing toddler on the asphalt drive.
Then the mother, worn and wondering
Persuades the child to sit still in the car
Strapped into its seatbelt.
The doors lock
Just in case her courage returns

I do not want to be calmed.

I want the storm to continue surging in my head,
spilling surf from my eyes while tremors shake my shoulders.

I crave a continuation of this pure energy, more than I’ve experienced in months.

Let me pulse with the fury and despair simultaneously,
allow this tempestuous tantrum to expand infinitely into the night and beyond,
where rosy fingers announce the dreaded dawn.

But all too soon the quaking subsides and the sobs give way to gaping silence,
leaving behind an emptied crater too deep to fill with equally empty consolations.

So the chasm compounds.

The body submits at last to exhaustion,
and the mind is temporarily muted.

She is my person
When I cry I turn to her
When I want to die I turn to her
She listens and she speaks
Softly, gently, understanding    
When I worsen
She's there for me
She's given me help
She's made me speak
She is strong when I am weak

Storybook skies filled with spinning stars
With a cast of a broken crew
Through lands of fables passing
While all the plots fell through

The friends became the strangers
The memories faded to black
Despite my steadfast resistance
There was no going back

You know that feeling of infinite loss
The sense of suspended reality?
The notion of going unnoticed
Alone, in a crowd?
I dream of that feeling, of not feeling at all
As I prepare for my ultimate fall.

Tug of war with sleep and sight
I revert to childhood
Refusing submission to heavy lids
My eyes crave colors and light

Gas? or Gummy worms?
Gas is semi-essential.
Gummy worms are appealing.
Reasoning points to gas.
But between life and death...
Reasoning is nowhere to be seen.

Sit pretty
Smile wide
Even though
You're dead inside
Take a breath
And force them down
All your emotions
Till you drown  
Only then will they all see
How picture perfect I could be

You can hear all the pep talks
You can try something new
But nothing can soothe the crush
Of discovering that your best is not enough

When the emotions were so frenzied that they spilled out of my mind
And I furiously typed to sort my thoughts
It was cathartic and it showed me I could create something of my own
Yet now I'm left with cobwebs and stress and
I'm alone
You'd think that this is progress, though progress it may be
But after all the chaos now I am left alone with me

To be or not to be
Is not the real question.
The real question is,
How do we manage
And why?
Why struggle
When we could all
Sit down and give up
Everything?
What keeps us going?
Why do we persevere?
These are the questions
That permeate my mind

It gets steadily harder to breathe
And I want to turn and leave
But those that keep me alive
Would be distraught
If I died.