You tell them "you're worthy to live"
But you spend the rest of the day
Counting your breaths thinking
You don't deserve it
And waiting for your last breath

You say "everyone's beautiful"
Yet you look at the mirror
And call yourself a monster

You tell those who are heartbroken
"You deserve better"
Yet you waste your time
Loving someone who doesn't even appreciate you

You tell them "Always love yourself"
But you picked all your flaws like dead flowers
And you despised each and everything about you

Why is it easy for you to say such good things and mean it,
But you can never see the beauty inside of you?

With hidden cuts on her legs
She whispers to him

"Please don't hurt yourself"

Depression.
We, as a society,
should step back
and evaluate this word.

What are we doing
that causes people
to cut themselves
or throw themselves
off of bridges?

Are we really so selfish
as to overlook these people?

They are fighting a battle
that we can't even fathom
playing out in their heads.
The casualties, the blood,
everything is real to them.

I will continue to utter,
"We must help"
until it becomes a roar
of people demanding
to give them a second thought.

We must help them.

No more lives should
slip through the cracks.

Stop trying to remember his scent, he smelled like summer and reminds you of the time he made you laugh so hard, you snorted out milk on that dead, hazy day.

2. Don't waste your day trying to decipher what colour his eyes were, it'll only remind you of the galaxies and constellations that you once saw in his eyes

3. Stop trying to retrace the shape of his mouth in the middle of the night, you'll choke on your tongue trying to taste the mint he devoured seconds before pulling you in for a kiss

4. Stop reliving the times you clasped hands together, the glass plate will fall off your trembling hands.

5. Burn this list, admit that the galaxies and constellations shining in his eyes were wilted, the one in yours are bursting with fire. Remember on the dead, hazy day his laugh sounded like nails running down a chalkboard. Remember when you kissed, the weeds growing from his mouth entangled the roses blooming in yours.

Realize that one day, another boy is going to come and plant daisies where he left behind thorns.

Driving down the street,
asphalt littered with patches of scattered sunlight,
breeze blowing down my drunk,
sobering up from last night.

I'm
remembering a slurred argument I had with this woman about compassion
I was just yelling over and over:
"How can you know a thing about compassion?
How can you call me brave and noble,
and call me a killer in the same breath?
do you even know what you're saying?
Do you know the real meaning,
behind the words on the veil?"

I'm drunk ****, trying to pick up the peices
of my sanity
as I hurl them across my dashboard
with every chunk of cigarette ash I tap away,
trying to forget and remember last night,
because it's always a dark, damp place inside my soul.

Two long island iced teas, a thousand more coronas,
a couple more useless people blabbering about
their truths and their ideas, and how their right,
and their is no such thing as w r o n g.

Holy ****, this place makes me sick.

So, I get into my car,
angry at the woman I was yelling at,
because she is so happy with herself,
happy with her ideas, how small they've made me feel.

How big she is now.

How insignificant her ideas are as I drive away,
her sweatshirt looks like the inside of an old man's crotch,
a long stain of beer
that she doesn't know about, and I'm just the same.

Somewhere on me there is something I don't know about,
and yet I feel better than you.

Back to this.

And SHE is in my mind,
(not her)
all the time, wherever I go,
wherever I am pretending to be
when I am really not there
at
all. Someplace else.

Pictures of her life
without me,
**** me.

Memories of her disappointment. I was always bad,
or uncontrollable. Too drunk. Too, too, too drunk. And too, too, too, stupid to realize,
that I was hugging her with that stain. Drowning her in my stain.

Flashes of her body and the fever it got going inside of me,
the hot, uncontrollable, ecstasy that poured into my being
with the mere lick of thinking about the stain in her crotch
that I had caused. A yellow, polka dotted sundress stopping just above her
buttermilk kneecaps. I could slip ******* on both sides of the dressstraps,
and slide it down her shoulders--as easy as silk--all the way to her ankles.  God gave me heaven.

And how much grief I get over too much to drink.

Then I met a friend at a pizza bar.
And I'm hammered, slurring, and he sits with me as I find another person,
I'm a magnet for you all. I hate and love what you make me say about myself.
How I reveal and demean.

And we yammer, my friend drinks his beer, the person leaves, we have our pizza.

And SHE is there. In my mind, all the time.

My mind is an imagination zone, and I am guessing that she's with her boyfriend at the beach.

the pain of my imagination is a knife when she's messing around in my heart. always.

And so, now, at this stoplight I'm trying to stop myself from the things that make me forget myself.

I'm back here now. In the present. And I'm ashamed, humbled, content, and I don't want to drink or smoke
anymore.

I want to be a businessman with a wife.

I don't know how to tell you,
I don't want to disappoint you
I'm depressed Mom
I wish I could say it to your face
Instead of writing it down
I want to be able to tell you
Because
I'm sick of these voices
Inside of my head
Telling me how fat I look
Or how I'm annoying everyone I talk too
But I try to be happy for you
I smile but do you look me in the eyes?
Can't you tell that there's a war going on in my mind?
I know you see my scars
But you don't say anything
why?
I'm slowly killing myself
And I try showing you signs
So when I'm gone
Don't hate me because I didn't tell you
I just loved you too much
To say it out loud