I am often asked:
"How can one find poetry in such a damaged and desolate world?"

The answer is simple:

Poetry can be found anywhere.

It is the sorrow that drives our tears,
the sunshine that brings us joy,
our companion in the darkness,
and that which guides us to the light.

It is the music of our spirit,
the gentle beating of our hearts.
The triumphant wind on the mountaintop,
a source of comfort in a rainy forest.

It is the scream of a father in pain,
the gentleness of a newborn child.
It is the chaos of a raging river
and the calm of a summers day.

Poetry can be found anywhere.

I used to hurt myself every single day
Used to maybe to go a week at best without fresh wounds
Used to need it to get through the day

And it's difficult to explain
And it's different for everyone that chooses to feel pain
Cause that is exactly what it is choosing to feel pain
It's wanting to not be numb
Wanting to feel alive
Wanting to feel anything other than that emptiness
Because the emptiness is the heaviest thing you will never have
It's like filing your heart up with rocks
Feeling it sink in your chest

And that heaviness at first is just a symptom
It ***** but you push forward
But it gets heavier and you slowly loose control
Instead of growing stronger the weight just wears you out
And son you feel the weight piling on more than ever
Every time they...
...call you a name...
...push you down...
...use you...
...ignore you...
...abuse you...

And it builds and builds and you can't keep going
And you start to wonder what if I just didn't exist
And the thought scares you to death but you feel so helpless
And you can't keep carrying the weight in you heart without help
So every single day the though come up
What if you just died

And every day it seems more and more like a better idea
Because you're tired of crying yourself to sleep
And you're tired of always feeling alone and unwanted
And everything is so numb that it hurts
So you give it a shot and it's messy
It always is the first time
And there's blood
But for once you don't feel like you have a heart full of rocks
Instead your heart is racing from the rush
And you feel something
Its painful and awful but it's something
And its nice but not necessary

So a few weeks later on you're at your breaking point again
And you put steel to skin
And the blood arises from the **** like a mountain spring
And your body feels the rush all over again
Before you know it every day is a pain and all you want is to feel
So you're like me
Slit your wrists before bed
Cuts in the mouth in the morning
And the torment all day between the two

And you're not destroying your body because you're suicidal
You aren't doing it oping you'll die
You're not ripping flesh from flesh because you want attention
The horror inst worth a few glances

You're spilling blood like a warlord committing crimes only against your own body because you're trying desperately to stay alive and only in this bleeding, in this pain can you find any peace from the pain of existence and the voice inside you that tell a you just to give up and die already

It's counter-intuitive but it's what keeps you alive for another day

Step 1: Get out of bed
Step 2: Look in the mirror
Step 3: Practice your smile
Step 4: Eyedrops to hide the red eyes
Step 5: Conceal the dark circles
Step 6: Breathe
The curtains are almost up
Step 7: Lock down the pain
Step 8: Ignore the weight on your chest
Step 9: Silence the screams inside of your mind
Step 10: Choke down the sobs
Step 11: Ignore the stinging in your eyes
Step 12: Swallow past the tightness in your throat
You’ve put on this show a million times
Step 13: Don’t let them see
Times up. Curtains up. Camera rolling

Sometimes I think of killing myself
How the end would be so nice
How the darkness would swallow me up
And how the numbness would suffice
My need

For all the voices of the feelings
That constantly keep me reeling
To softly slow to a hush
As my brain starts tur-tur-turning into mush

How wonderful it would be
To have that powerful silence
Not even grasshoppers would bother
To wake me

My cells would stop dividing
My brain would stop the lying
Myself would stop denying
What I truly want

But but but
This is just a reckless fantasy
A way to elude one’s own reality

Because as I sit here on the floor
Tears drip drip dropping
I realize there’s those who care for me more
Cherish me more
Love me more
Than I love my own self

The crickets chirp
I put the pills down

I
itch to
peek beyond
the thick curtain
of my depression;
check if I have
some part of
myself
left.