I want to sleep,
but at the same time,
I don't want to.
I want to be engulfed
in empty headspace,
swimming in the darkness
of a dreamless void,
but at the same time,
I don't want to spiral deeper
into the unforeseeable
nor remain stagnant in desolation
because I know
that the longer I stay here
I would no longer
want to leave.

I want to sleep,
but at the same time,
I don't want to.
I want to drown all these voices
belonging to my insufferable demons,
their eerie whispers
seeping through every crevice of my mind,
but at the same time,
I don't want to feel the fear
that comes once I wake
and when I open my eyes again
because realization
would often dawn on me
that every single one of them
is here in the real world, too,
only, I can see them now
and it horrifies me to my very core
that they each hold the face
of somebody I love.

I want to sleep,
but at the same time,
I don't want to.
I want to bask in the deafening silence
that welcomes me when my eyes are closed
and my mind
with the hurricane of my thoughts
are just put on hold,
but at the same time,
I don't want to,
because I know all too well
that this peace I am granted
whenever my mind is shut down
is only ephemeral
and I'll always be forced out of it,
a never-ending loop,
a vicious cycle,
and I am a fool
for thinking that every time I wake,
it would be different.

There's barely ten minutes left until one in the morning and I am thinking of you. It's been a while since I've done so, but as my eyes squint down at the dimmed screen of my laptop which shows our past conversations, I cannot help but feel an outburst of emotion in me.

Do you not want
to be with me
because you’re afraid
of showing me
the demon that lies
inside of you?

Sweetie, don’t worry,
because I deal with demons
every single day
and‬ I am telling you,
I will not deal with yours
because you will learn
to deal with your demon, yourself,
one day.

I will be here
and we will fight
our demons
until they go away
and I promise you,
unlike them,
I will be here to stay.

Sometimes, I find it hard to love
It takes mere moments to fall so deeply
And yet years to be free of the pain
What’s worse if it’s only a tiny crush
That soon turns into something extreme
It is here when it is hard to accept

We may not even want to accept
This feeling so sweet, this thing called love
But is this what it seems when it can crush
Ourselves, to an extent that’s so extreme
But to know this is to think so deeply
And to be sure of this, we must feel pain

And yet, not one wants to feel any pain
It is oftentimes harder to accept
That feelings can go beyond the extreme
When one falls a little or too deeply
It makes no difference, it might become love
When one develops even a small crush

There will be moments that these thoughts may crush
Even those who are already in pain
No appearance can heal as deeply
As when feelings are returned, those of love
Feelings that are bound for us to accept
These are the ones that are far more extreme

And at what length would one become extreme
Just for a person, dearer than a crush
Someone, not loved, but one who too gives love
There have been times we needed to accept
Even the worst among all kinds of pain
For us to learn, grow, and feel more deeply

When this happens, when all is done deeply
To feel would be something far more extreme
It would then be too easy to accept
And heal from all the struggle, all the pain
These feelings will turn from some silly crush
To something far better, a newfound love

They say that to feel deeply is extreme
But only a crush that goes on gives pain
When you accept, that, in itself, is love

Do you
sometimes think
about what could have
gone right
or do you
only think
about all the things
that went wrong?

Do you
ever think
of all the things
we should have done
or all the things
we shouldn’t have
and wonder
back to the day
our love was still strong?

Maybe you do
and maybe you don’t,
but it doesn’t
matter now
because all we can do
is look back
at all our lapses
and smile.

Because our love
was young,
and we both
just decided
to grow up.

It’s really hard to admit
that maybe
what I’m feeling for you,
is nothing
compared to the feelings you have
for her,
and I swear to God,
I wish
more than anything in this world
that I was
the girl you feel a million things for.

When you smile
and when you laugh,
when you’ve stumbled
and ended up last.

When you feel down
and you just want to cry,
cry all those tears on me now,
don’t be shy.

I’d just be here,
with every bit of me.
I’ll help you up,
and maybe eventually.

The next time you smile
and the next time you’ll laugh,
you’ll pick yourself up
and your happiness will last.

The next time you feel down
and when you just want to cry,
you’ll win the fight this time
and you will soar so high.

And I’d just be here,
with every bit of me.
I’ll always help you,
if you will still remember me.