You
you walked into my life
unannounced yet so prominent and visible among the rest
and amongst all the unrest and panic and hazy smoke from ghosts of fiery emotions I could hear you, see you, understand you, feel you in my heart.... though I refused to admit it at the time.

I've become so numb due to the unforgivable things I've done
And I know you'll still hate me by the end of this
but I just wanted to say I'm sorry.
I'm in searing pain every night
but I'm getting better during the day.
It was you who always said
"pills won't take the aches away
pills won't make you feel okay
pills won't get you through the day,"
and you were right, because my antidepressant was YOU.
But when you, unlike the medication, decided to walk away
I turned to the orange bottle
because it remains constant,
it is the friend you never were,
it is the lover you would never be,
it doesn't make promises it can't keep,
and it doesn't make me wonder every waking moment of my life whether or not this day is the one it leaves me.
No, that day won't come.
But it did with you.

And now, as I drown in sorrow that floods my eyes like the happiness that used to flood the burning and gaping holes in my heart,
you unregretfully, unrelentlessly bask in the memories of the sunny summer days we spent in the park,
lying with him and to him, wearing nothing but the t-shirt I gave you so long ago.
Whether you proverbially or physically slapped me in the face, it doesn't matter, because either way I'm lying here shaking and in pain,
with hate in my heart, and regret pulsing out of my veins onto the raw skin of my wrists.
No, there can't be a new dawn,
I don't see a new day coming
but I know you do, and that kills me the most.
And after all of our love-and-war tug-of-war ******* is over and done,
contrary to previous belief, I wasn't your only one.
I wasn't your hero,
I let you down,
and you won't even talk to me long enough for me to apologize.

He is a tree swaying in a snowstorm in late autumn
A not-so-evergreen, with browning-red streaks all over his limbs.
Pushed around by the winds of the storm,
gasping for air and yearning for sun to give him the strength to stand,
only receiving more stress and pressure from sharp seasonal winds that seem to exist solely to shorten his year-round life.
Lack of oxygen and too many cuts leave pink, brown and yellow leaves on his limbs,
making him look out out of place among the rest.
The rest that evidently either don't care or just forget
that he once looked like them, acted like them, felt like them, but no more.
Of course there are always those that love the different ones,
sympathize, empathize, and emphasize the fact that beauty can exist in what is not conventionally beautiful.
But even the warmth from these good souls will often be diminished and become soulless when winter comes around.
A time in which one watches, with notches for eyes,
as the red and yellow and purple blotches that the select and wonderful few once loved decay and drain away.
He looks dead.
He acts dead.
He feels dead.
So he believes he is, indeed, dead.
And consequently, so does the rest of the world;
as it is a universal truth, it seems, that the way someone looks, and acts, and feels, determines what they are.
A fallacy; one that has caused the downfall and tragedy of humans and trees alike since the first man spoke and the first plant bloomed.
If a person is gone, it is best to forget and bury them, and if a tree looks dead, it is best to cut and burn it.
Of course, most trees tend to either stay green or spring back to life
after the dark days of winter, flourishing in the dog days of summer,
but every year it is a tree's biggest fear that he will be one of the black tragic few
who do not come back, due to being overshadowed by taller, fresher, better trees
that mother nature had more meticulously pruned.
No, his fear grew that he would never bloom,
he was one of the lesser ones,
outgrown and outmatched by those evergreens and ever-okays that needed less sun and love to carry on
intentionally blocking light from him, leaving only a few sadly relatable meek rays that cut through
the sharp pines like an even sharper knife.
They would shine down on him like a spotlight, or even better, a laser beam capable of lifting him up,
severing his roots to his past and bringing him up to face the public eye,
exposed and vulnerable to the judgement of his scraggly twigs for arms and thick trunk, leafless, better yet lifeless, a thing to behold in a depressingly pathetic light in the middle of the forest,
isolated and alone among a crowd of superiors, allowing any random passerby on a hike to look down on him in pity, as they learn what it is like to see something slowly, carefully, inevitably,

die.

There are people that say,
That depression,
Is Ok.

There are people that say,
That being bipolar,
Is just another disorder.

There are people that say,
That having anxiety,
Is a normal thing.

There are people that say,
Being Unhappy,
Is a thing that will just pass.

The best part is,
Depression,
Is not something that,
Should be a part of your everyday,
Life.

Being bipolar,
Isn't a joke,
It isn't something fake,
It's not just another disorder.

Anxiety,
Isn't a regular thing to have,
It is annoying to have,
And hard to deal with.

Being Unhappy,
Is a very bad thing.

How would you,
Feel,
If you were hurting daily,
Because someone said,
Your problems are a normal thing.

I’ve been swimming in a school of fish
Spent the last thirteen years growing gills,
always swimming in the same direction,
The name of the game is simply ‘keep up.’

I’m nineteen years old and I may not be the smartest fish in the sea,
but Ive always dreamed of the surface,
Envied the skipping stones who make ripples with their freedom.  
Swimming in follow the leader formation isn’t easy when the the leader wants you to lose,
And it never could have prepared us
for the tsunami they called graduation, we ended up on land
And it turns out all along we needed lungs
Because the name of the game was ‘survive.’

Feel your scales cracking, gills gasping,
We were released without the skills we needed
Those who were here before us are willing to tax
Our lack of understanding,
demonstrating that if you pull a fish backward
His gills will fill with the water he has always trusted,
he will die.
They will serve him up, they call it Legal Sea Foods for a reason.

The rest of us are stranded,
Drying in the sand we used to dream of,
gasping for waves, looking to rely on the
very opportunities that betrayed us.

It’s almost as if theres a neon sign above us
A sign that reads ‘you are here.’
You are here and you cannot leave.
They taught you how to swim and how to follow
And fish don’t really sleep but they told you
Dream, Dream, Dream!
You are here and you cannot leave,
They told you you could walk
But they never taught you how to breathe.

Depression is being so tired every minute of every day
that finding the energy to get out of bed is taxing.
Depression is not wanting to be around people you know you love
because the thought of explaining how you are really doing is heartbreaking.
Depression is drowning in an ocean of your thoughts
while everyone around you scolds you because you should ‘know how to swim.’
Depression is being so confused as to why you feel the way you do
because everyone declares that happiness is a choice you have to choose to make.
Depression is avoiding even looking in the mirror
because you’ve surpassed the point of self-hate.
Depression is being stranded on an island and having the tools to signal for help
but not being able to read the language of the instructions on the label.
Depression is being surrounded by people who love you
but feeling completely alone and unloved.