When even
A little ways away, you say;
Look! Oh, our keen
Downcast ones, we never
Want His ego; No –

Like our eyes are cement.
Even the sky is gray.

What ends!
Where a lock keeps

Everybody talks about depression as if they know it.
Like they can feel the blood dripping down their skin,
And they know the sick thought of "Oh -- look how beautiful the red is."
(They always say red is my color.)

As if they laid on their bed for hours on end,
Salt tracks lining their face like the scars on their ankles,
Because tears just won't come anymore.
As if they know staring at their ceiling, tracing patterns in the paint
And thinking "Maybe if I stay here awhile longer, I'll go away --
I'll cease to exist" because they're past the point of suicidal thoughts --
Accepting death in life with this hole in their chest and thinking
Death is a reward, an escape from this pain I deserve to feel.

I know depression. The kind that goes unnoticed --
The kind that takes the metal from a hair tie and not cuts --
But scrapes at the skin on her arm, lying on her bed,
Tears not yet dried up with a mother screaming "MONSTER"
Outside of her door.
I know the kind that cuts on her ankles, not her wrists,
Because she's scared she'll get in trouble but she
Desperately needs to be seen.
And never is.

I know depression. The kind that stops cutting because
She gives up hope that she ever will be.
The kind that accepts being alone, that accepts the pain
Like a gift because she deserves it -- that didn't smile for a year,
That went so far into herself that she forgot what connection was like
Not that she ever knew in the first place because

I know a depression that's always been there.
That started some time before the age of 10 but
She can't remember because the monster inside her chest
Stole those years, those memories.
And that monster took the place of every connection she might have felt --
Stopped it, muted it, because it wanted to be her sole companion.
So it was, and has been for 19 years.

And no one ever knew. Or --
They did, but they'd call her crazy.
Demented. Pathetic. A creep. Tell her she had no right --
That because she had a family, a home, money, whatever,
Because of this, her pain was irrelevant.
Fake - selfish - vain - wrong - she hadn't earned it -
So no one cared.

I know that depression.

Have you ever seen the veins of poetry?
As if born of the nothings in between,
The spaces a story with no setting;
More profound, I think, of thee.

I met a lady who was a nose
And mountains that were eyes,
I asked them both a question,
It was the mountains that replied;

"Melting moonrise--
We quiver at your river,
For fear of falling in--
But we can't step away from the reflection,
Rejection is surmise--"

I am but borrowed passions,
Everything a gesture
To impress unrequited lovers,
My lips touched by corpses;
Caressed by the dead
As an object of ***.

Each kiss poisons--
Hollows this person,
Until she is naught but body--
Skin, *******, and withered bones--
Lying in a coffin, legs exposed;  
She'd call it necrophilia
But life had left, long, long ago.

Slowly but surely,
Falling in love with this city;
With myself in this city.
Never want to go home, but-
They say home is where the heart is.
If that’s true, then

Maybe I’m home already.

There isn't much to be said
About the day time-
Hour after hour, we beat on
Against the ticking clock
Of complacency,
Until before we know it-
We're ****** into the realm of
The halfway living.
Awake past midnight,
Processing the happenings
Of 9-5,
As if draging them out into
Language
Will increase their potency.

There's nothing more moving
Than yesterday,
After a night of fermenting in
Our desperate minds.
Often too late to be felt
Before 10pm.

Reality is too much with us.
Pushing up against
Our trembling palms,
As we reach out
To ******
The manufactured idea of
Happiness. Prepackaged
And with an expiration date
Beyond the next year.

We try to find our fate in tarot cards,
Palm readings, grocery market bargains, expensive haircuts where they only take an inch off but you still cry, second rate ballets and strip clubs, the words of others, and Sunday services past 12 where the hangover isn't as dreadful.
Experience junkies,
****** fiends,
Attention addicts,
Compassion parasites,
We **** the marrow from the earth
And prescribe her with Ritalin
And 3 months of sick leave-
The placebo effect has never seemed
So enticing.

Is this what it's like to talk to God?
Newspapers from last week
Find their way into the warm,
Sticky floors of the subway:
They have no purpose here
In this cool, indifferent future.
Bold headlines prophesying drought,
And lamenting those already dead,
Alongside ads for half off
A large pizza, and 25% off your biggest
Problems. Classified ads
And the sports section
Reek of ***, failure
And vulnerability-
No one cares, now.
The past is only real within the proceeding hour,
And middle school history class lessons,
Too optimistic to hold
Any reality beyond repetition.

Lifeless, we seep through time until
The pages are soaked and soggy with
Our failed ambition and twice baked
Love stories that grossed a billion dollars
For the movie theaters, gas stations and diamond companies-
Condensed into romance novels
And nonfat ice cream:
A testament to a nation
Afraid to feel anything that isn't synthesized
And discussed in tabloid magazines.

Sideline poets and actors,
We rap our knuckles raw against the railing,
Nervously counting down the seconds
Until we will be called to dutifully recite
All we know.
Waiting, we count our blessings.
The cumulation of good deads and sacrifice
That have paid the dues for a one way ticket
To the promised land.
Little children, again,
We twist the frays of our sweaters
And buckle our knees with anticipation
Of judgement day
And Memorial Day weekend.

Dandelions still the night with kisses,
Teasing the wind at my lips;
It isn't too wise to wish-
But oh! Dandelion Moonrise,
What are your wishes?

Love is metal wires,
Bent upward,
Knotted together
In matrimony--Or fear--
I've never known which.
As for me? Well;
I'm a bird.
And I refuse to
Have my wings clipped.

Oh, beautiful flower,
How wistful in woe,
Paint peace in your petals
And peace in foe.