you gifted me rope
and I used to will it a necklace

1st take
oftentimes I still struggle  
to keep in mind
that my life is no battlefield
that nobody’s purpose has ever been to bring me down
it still amazes me how the only words meant to make me fall
are my own

2nd take
oftentimes my mind is still a racing car
competing against beings so much more superior and human
I have to prove myself and reach up
always up, up, up, up – it’s never high enough
up in the clouds, fog in my head
I sometimes notice
how life is passing me by
longingly looking at me on the other side of the glass
so far away
and yet so close to the chances I regret never taking

3rd take
I always fantasized time would one day be my dear friend
unlike those old ladies
ever complaining about their white locks
so ashamed they’d colour them away like a flaw.
when I was a child
I promised I would love my white hair so much
like a well-earned and long-awaited prize
I would proudly strut in the streets
carrying in my purse the kind of contentment
only self-love can gift you.
and yet , as I breach from adolescence to adulthood
like an injured prey thrown to the wolves
I can’t help but already feel the weight of time
(ever ticking by my ear)
upon my spinning head – not what’s to come
but what I left behind.

4th take
oftentimes I still struggle
to function like a proper human being
in a room full of people
how can I be one of them?
there’s more days I am my mental illness
than days I trick myself into believing
I’m not.
I still consider myself a teen
that’s the age I was truly born
the shock of learning a prodigious pill can’t help you
surely does feel like dying
only to be thrown into a life
you never asked for
all over again.
unprepared as one always is
learning from scrap to make weapons
out of years of self-loathing
I still struggle to understand how could I possibly love myself
when my mind convinces me nobody else does.

5th and last take
do you even exist?
I ask myself when you finally decide to act up -
you have never given me a warning sign
a red flag
you’re unexpected and so **** good at making me doubt myself
and if I don’t believe me
who could I ever possibly believe?
I could choose to believe you
but I will never give you the satisfaction.

the strangest feeling is constantly being watched
but never truly seen,
talking
but never really being heard –
you told me you are the only one who does not judge me.

there are days you know me
better than I know myself,
you are my best friend and comforter then
but I learned how to hate you when taking control of my body as if it were your own
using it as you please
for destroying it so carefully
brings you so much power
(you always drain me
and I’m always tired)

your care was never selfless
but selfish and greedy
even when I give you what you want
desperate for silence and peace and loneliness
I am never truly free
the aftertaste of the words unwillingly spilling from my mouth
has always tasted so bitter

fighting you is a losing game anyway
I’m so ******* glad
if I go down,
you’re coming with me

- to my anxiety disorder
                   (*******)

the paved country road swells under the heavy footfalls of the weary warrior

it is the dawn of march and the roses will remember the blush of death no more.

no more that is due to the sullen rock which the freshly smeared crimson slumbers upon

no more that is due to the holy droplets hauntingly trailing their way home from the sky

like divine reprisal

the heavens cry the loss which will be remembered no more that is due.

no more that is due to the village folks strutting about

rejoicing the return of the weary warrior

and his dripping sword.

no more that is due to the chaste maiden weeping in the wet meadow

for her freedom is gained

and another one’s lost.

the weary warrior moves along the muddy path still

while the dripping drizzle heartens his tired soul

for he know that someone does weep for the life which has been forcibly and heartlessly taken that day

that warm day of april struck by lightning and  thunder and fragile fury.

it is said that to slay a monster creates another

and to save a life a debt is repaid

for the cost of life

is a life still.

and yet the warrior moves along and does not weep

he’s coming home

and does not stop his heavy footfalls nor the beating of his erratic heart which has been yearning for it.

the fire will burn the remains of the day no more

but the fire was home too

the fire was life

and it has been extinguished.

the wary long-battled warrior is coming home through the cave and the meadow and the country path

for he has seen and lived it all and can never turn away from the scorching tear in his chest

and the village is his home no more.

the village is water and rain and it will not stop just like his tired steps

the whole world has sank away into the water

therefore the tired warrior does not return to the world

and instead he decides to return home.