My body, driftwood
Remnants of a ship
That hit the wall
Hours ago
And floating
Conversations erode
Into splinters
Corpses, these words
Clutching at emotions
For one last lifesaver
To keep me alive
Drifting on the surface
In hopes to find home

I will stop
saying your name
as if it is a goodbye
as long as you don’t stop
chasing after my fingers
when I am about to leave

I sleep with the lights on every night

For I don’t want to be surrounded by darkness

Suffocate in the blackness

For in the dark

Every outline sprouts arms and legs

Close your eyes and listen

To the gnashing of teeth and rumbling of low growls

For in the dark

Blind to hands and teeth

They invade my perception

Closing in an angry mob of outlines

For in the dark

Everything comes alive

Lurking along the edge

While I stumble over my feet

For in the dark

I am helpless and alone

My heartbeat clatters in my ears

Creating my own soundtrack

For in the dark

Anything is possible in the sea of black

Blind, unable to find myself

I am lost spiraling around and around in the unknown

For in the dark

Everything is strange therefore a stranger

Unable to talk, I wish only to scream

But I am told not to talk to strangers

For in the dark

I myself become unknown

Floundering within the outlines

Until they consume me up

For in the dark

I hear every word I don’t want to hear

Feel every emotion I try hide

I am unable to speak

For in the dark

Anything is possible

Blind and helpless

Until I am left with only tears

So I sleep with the lights on every night

The summer is memories

Of chalked drawings and hopscotch squares

I still find it under my nails

Thin layer of dust in pastels

Crammed under, compacted

With summers of my childhood

Reduced to hieroglyphs

Incomplete scribbles, a broken language

Of friendships long forgotten

And places long lost

I can’t help but feel regret

For I was willing to reduce my childhood

To nothing more than chalked reminders

Beneath my nails

I have forgotten
The sound
Of your voice
I try to recreate it
In memories
In photographs
And I never quite remember
The exact tone of your voice
I feel you disappearing
Losing your dimensions
Becoming just a photograph
Flat, lifeless
And I struggle
To build you out of shadows
And pieces of memories
But what can you do
With a puzzle
Of incomplete pieces
I miss you more now
Than I did before

The sky goes for miles
ocean full of floating clouds
birds are diving fish

and routine changed,
frivolity found a way to play
time collapses as you set aside order
grabbing chaos and you find
fun takes over, and you slip into change

My anxiety
Is my religion
I wear my nerves
Around my neck
Some days
I wish I wasn’t
So committed
To this god
I wish I hadn’t
Spent so much time
Learning the rules
I want to be excommunicated
Discard my racing heartbeat
Peel away my bouts of depression
I want to join a support group
And share my cult stories
Where my fears kidnapped me
From my family and friends
Write a book about my survival
Tour the world
reciting past doctrines of my anxiety
But instead, I stretch myself
Along my bed
Arms open
And sink beneath the weight
Of my religion, my anxiety

I am the creation
of many unsung songs
each tune lived and died
for a moment on my lips
pulling the lyrics inside
so the birds in my rib cage
have something
a brief piece of freedom
as I rest my hands
on my self-made cage