Paris
The city of light
Having its darkest night
Since World War Two.

Lebanon
Double the body bags,
Yet no media hags
Turn their heads.

Normal
For there they say
But for Paris nay
And so we pay attention.

Kenya
Syria
Iraq
Libia

A suicide bomb
Over here,
Two hundred dead, we overhear
Wrapped into our daily news.

We pay it
Almost no heed
As the blood drips down to feed
The list of the dead.

We say
It is because we have grown
Accustomed, yet we have flown
Over the Coocoo's best to believe this.

The truth is,
Both for here
And there,
A white life is worth far more.

It is worth
10 Black American lives,
16 Hispanic or Asian lives,
27 Arab lives,
35 African lives,
These numbers
Straight from CNN
And the New York Times.

Do we not bleed the same blood?
Have we forgotten what it is to smile
Such that we cannot see ours are all the same?
What has happened to this world,
Once so gold and bright,
Now a darkened, saddened grey
As it weeps it's tears
Upon the red river
That runs through the valley of fears.

Emotion?
Yeah, kinda.
Friends?
Oh bit definitely.
Lovers?
For the *****.
In love?
Nope.
Fun?
Totally.
Do again?
Would love to.
Date?
Maybe.
Ask her out?
Nope.
Worth it?
Oh, so very, very much.

Depression
Is when
You want to do something
But lack the motivation
And feel like you
Can do
Nothing.
Depression
Is when
You feel an overwhelming sadness
That does not go
Does not ask
But simply stays
As it slowly puts out
The fire
In your heart.
Depression
Is when
You feel hunger
And yet you do not eat
Because to cook
Is far
Too much effort
And who are you
To take that food?
Depression
Is when
You feel pain
To a massive scale
But none of it
Truly goes away.
You have good days
And bad days
Joyous moments
And horrific ones.
But depression
Is when
Even your good moments
Are tainted
By the knowledge
That you will soon
Slip back
Into the gaping abyss
Of sadness and despair
That is
Your psyche.
There is no cure,
Not a universal one,
At least.
If your depression
Is caused by
Loneliness
Or heartbreak,
Than perhaps
A partner
Could end it.
If your depression
Is caused
By asinine family members,
Then maybe
If they were just nice
Instead of mean
They
Could end it,
But the problem
With depression
Is that
No one knows
That you have it
Unless you tell them.
And if you do,
They will either
Back away
As if from leprosy
Or some contagious disease
Or they will
Know nothing of it
And abandon you
Or they
Will completely
Over re-act,
And send you to
A therapist
Which sometimes
May help
And other times
May make worse
The depression.
But sometimes
If you tell
The right people
They will simply
Be there for you
And help you through
And whether
They know how
Depression works
Or not
It often
Does not matter
So much as the fact
Of knowing
That someone out there
Truly cares
About what happens
To you.
And that
Is the only
Universal
Relief.
And so thank you
For being there
When you
Can.

Beauty is pain, they so often say.
Well, okay.
Life is beautiful, they say as well.
Indeed, we may say.
But if life is beauty and beauty is pain,
Then is not life pain?
For my life surely is.
And is not our
Biological goal
To seek an end to the pain we feel?
But surely genetics have made us so,
So that we can escape pain.
Death
Is the end of life,
Or at least of this one,
On that all may agree.
And so if death
Is the end of life
And life
Is pain,
Then is not death
Our goal?
Is not death
The desired release?

I am a leaf
Blowing in the wind
I cannot hold
My emotions
To one tether
Or another.
And yet,
And yet I am attached,
Directly attached
To one
Three thousand
Miles away.
But alak,
Alas,
For she
She is no longer
With me,
For three thousand
Is far too big
For two students
Not yet in college.
And so,
And so I must go on
And yet,
And yet I cannot
For whatever may happen
To me
And to her
I shall always remain
Attached
To her.

Life is beautiful,
Even in its ******* things.
The small bags of life-
The creases in the paper,
The untying bands of bracelet,
The crinkled edges of the dollar bill,
The thin dark gunk
Collected upon the penny,
The uneven water splashed upon
The bathroom sink,
The droplets upon the toothbrush,
The random foam of the fluoride rinse,
The fraying strands of gray and black
Athletic sock,
The clouded water
Lying below the ivory soap
In its dish-
These are unpleasant, yes,
But they remind us
That we are in this world,
That this is no false world
But a quite real one,
One which we can shape
Or help shape,
One that is worth living in,
Worth loving in,
A good world.

I have been
Friendzoned,
Many a time.
It is a common experience
Among both geneders,
For it is truly
The best way
Do deal
With that issue.

But now,
Now let me tell you
Of a far greater pain
And longing.
For I have been
Timezoned.

For my love,
She is across the country,
Our great country,
Our far too expansive country.
She is over hills and mountains,
Rivers and valleys,
Plains and forests.
She is over the Appalachians,
Past the Blue Ridge
Around the myriad waterfalls
Of Western North Carolina,
All sparkling in their magnificence
As the light crests over the hill,
Spilling into their deep pools
And flowing drops,
Yet they all,
All of them,
Pale in comparison to her,
To her golden skin,
Her flashing eyes,
Her smile
That beams down upon you
And radiates with
Joy and happiness,
And her hair,
So-called ***** blonde,
But to me,
There is no purer,
For it flows
More freely
Than the waterfalls
And looks
Even more gorgeous
As the sunlight hits.
For she is more beautiful
Than a Sunset
Upon the lake
Where she lives.

She is over the great Mississippi,
Which flows from Canada
All the way to the Gulf of Mexico,
Streaming across our country
As a boarder
Twixt east
And west.
The only thing
Even larger
That I know
Is her kindness
And compassion,
For those are
Without end.

She lies
Past the cornfields of Nebraska
And past the plains
Of the olden tribes.
My love lies beyond them,
And of all things
She alone
Could make those miles of wheat
Joyous
To drive through.

She lies over the Rockies,
Past the Tetons,
And around the great apple orchards
Of her state.
For her I would climb
The Rockies,
Tunnel through
The Tetons,
And harvest
Every apple
In the state.
But alas,
That would help me
No more
Than hacking off a limb.

To be timezoned then,
Is to end
What barely began
Not because
Anyone wants to
But because
Simple geography
And age
Makes it impossible.
It feels far worse
Knowing that,
If you were there,
If you lived within
A three-hour drive,
You would be
With her.
But alas,
I am not.
I live
Forty-five hours
Of non-stop driving
To the east
And south.
A seventy-hour long bus ride,
And a 6 hour long flight.
And yet I know
That if I were there
I would be with her.
But I am not,
And so someone else
Is.
What hurts
More than rejection
Is acceptance
And then having
The cruel fates
Swoop down
And stop
What would have been
Amazing.
What could have been
Perfection.
But what was instead
That
Which barely
Happened.

It's been a while
Since I've written here,
The dust has grow
Upon these words.
The fluidity with which once they flowed,
Gone.
Gone is the promise of a new day,
A new sun,
A new poem,
Gone is that ready elegance.
Words come out now, yea,
But forced.
The line breaks choppier,
The rhythm forced and staccato
Rather than the smooth sailing
Or the fierce and glorious torment
Of a summer tempest
O'er the high seas.
But here I am,
Time have I,
And so
I write.

Joy
Is warm apple cider
Drank on a porch
On a cold November day.

Joy
Is a friend
To whom you don't
Have to clarify and censor.

Joy
Is having a moment
To relax
And soak in the world.

Joy
Is having a friend whom talking to
Gives you energy
When you're an introvert.

Joy
Is a quiet read
Outdoors
After a stressful day.

Joy
Is somehow knowing
That everything
Is going to be okay,
And if it isn't,
That no one
Will leave you.

Joy is a slight smile,
A faint contentment
Upon the cheeks and lips,
And a great relaxation
Within.

Joy
Is what I have,
Somehow,
Right now.

The scene unfolds before me,
Yet I seem to be
The only one
Who pays it heed.
The glorious light,
The sun
With its radiant brilliance
Peering through the cracks
Of Clouds,
The trees
Gently waving
In the calm
Summer breeze,
All painted
By the living brush
Of Nature.
It is not
That I am the only one
Who
Can take a step back
And see this
Painting of God
Unfold
Before me,
But rather,
It is that I
Am the only one
Who listens
To the chirp
Of the crickets,
To the buzz
Of the cicadas
To the soft songs
Of the birds
And to the gentle whisperings
Of the wind
And does not think
On how
I must go home
Or how loud they are,
Or truly anything,
For when I
Am in Nature I,
I take a step
Off the path and
Into the world and
Stop thinking,
Start seeing and hearing and
Simply marveling at
What a gift it is
That we
Have been given
To live
In a world where
If you want to see beauty,
You can just look up,
Look out,
And you
Will find it,
That
We live
In a world where
Raw life
Surrounds us and
All we need to do to
Marvel
In the glory of nature is
Take down those windows
That we always have
Around us,
When we are
In the car or
In the house or
Simply walking down the street,
To
Take down that barrier that
Separates us
From the
Real world,
From this world of life
In which we live but
Which we ignore and
Simply walk by for
All too often we
Do not live
In this world but instead
Simply exist in it
And pass by the beauty that
So surrounds us.

A scar is a lost battle,
Clean skin is one won.
A battle does not lose the war,
But how can war ever be won
When you are fighting yourself?
For it as though
Your mind has declared war
Upon your happiness
And no matter of thinking
Can set it right.
Whenever there is a good moment
A minute,
An hour,
A day,
Even a week,
You always think,
"Maybe it is done now.
Perhaps I have won."
And then the moment ends,
The sadness come roaring back with
A Hail Mary pass and
All that happiness,
Joy,
And self-esteem
Built up in that time when all was well,
That comes crashing down upon the floor,
Shattered more easily than an iPhone screen
Upon the ground.
There is no victory,
There is no loss,
Only a slow, painful endurance
And the hope,
This sliver of radiant light that keeps us alive,
That one day,
Some day soon,
Life shall go back
To its happy place,
As it was before,
And the flowers shall be flowers,
Not roses devoid of their petals,
Only the thorns left to
Stick you skin.

Why bother.
It is a pointless folly
To try.
Life has no
Inner meaning,
No hope,
No beauty,
Only pain.
If I want to leave,
There are many ways.
I can jump off of my roof,
Diving head first
To our cement sidewalk.
I can slice open my wrists and
Cut my hamstrings
So that I cannot
Move,
Simply lying there,
Bleeding out.
I can take a full glass,
Enough to get  me drunk,
Then another
Then another
Until I am too far gone,
Destroyed by alcohol,
But mostly by myself.
I could grab some rope,
Like the character in my book,
With all his little details
Based off of me,
Tie it into a noose and
Swing it around the ceiling fan
In my room,
Tying it tight as I
Stand upon my
Woven blue office chair,
Then sticking my neck
Through the hole and
Kicking away the chair,
Kicking away the pain.
I could stab myself,
Only once,
Aiming for my neck,
Hoping to sever the cord
That keeps me alive.
But all of that,
Save maybe the alcohol,
Seems like far too much trouble
To set up.
It’s too hard to
Tie the rope,
Sever the skin,
Or stab in
Through my neck.
Perhaps I could just walk up,
Up to my room,
Up upon my bed,
Rolling open the window,
Crawl out and
Make a small jump out to the roof,
Scrambling to hold on.
Maybe then I’d find
Some glory in the struggle,
Some faint reason to live.
But more likely I’d simply
Cut out the middle man,
Save myself from the pain,
And leap off,
Face-first,
Towards the solid ground.

I want to die,
But without the effort
Of killing myself.
I don’t think
I’ll do something
To end my own life,
But if a car was coming
Straight at me,
At a killing speed,
I don’t think
I’d jump out
Of the way.

In all that lies, all that will.
For truth to tell and false shrill
Tent of being in the grass,
Yet many go and so pass
The wonderous life inside
When all barriers are set aside.

Feel like ****,
Worse than that,
**** doesn't trip on its *****
And hurt someone it loves.
Stay up late,
Maybe all night,
Wishing on things
Shouldn't have said.
So dumb,
So very dumb.
Perhaps apologies
Will never be enough,
Perhaps, just perhaps,
They will be.
Stumbling blind through the dark,
Entering a land of infrared and
Ultraviolet lights,
Ones I cannot see yet
I manage to find
The roughest, toughest, darkest spots
And run full-force into them.
I must sleep,
Yet know not if I can.
I have less than 4 hours to rest,
Yet cannot away to that dreaming world
For knowledge of what I have now wrought
In this.

Surrounded by the dark,
Enclosed from your heart
The warmth of friendship escapes me.
Your rod and your staff-
They do not comfort me.
I feel the your gift,
The weight  of your eternal breath,
It falls upon my chest as I fall,
Fall low,
Down to the ground,
No longer a soft forest floor,
But the hard and grainy
Asphalt
Of reality.
What once comforted
Now feels numb:
The pressure of your rod
Of your staff
Of the Tree of Life,
They fall upon me.
The breath you have given
My eternal soul,
It feels like
A constant
Morning Breath.
The pain of once
Seems morphed into
The torment of eternity.
What started
As mere scratches
Has grown large,
Slicing through my now paleing skin,
Leaving the rivlets of blood
Which I so desire.
God,
Adoni,
Ha-Shem,
Eternal One,
Whatever your name may be,
Whatever name you may go by,
Your gift feels a curse.

The heat,
The scorching rays
Of sand
Under the sun,
But far more
Was in the air
Than simple dust
Floating around.
For under that heat,
From the royal palace
To the basin
Of the mountain hike
To the beaches
And rocks
To the botellon
And the catedral
To the fiesta on
The first night
To Santa Anna
On the penultimate
To that last day
In Guadix
And the last night
In Madrid
To the plane ride
Back
And still,
Here,
As well,
It shall never
Stop.

Alone
In the crowd of people
The bright summer sun
Glints off of their faces,
The dark December clouds
Stay on me.

I know not why I stay
For the little I have left here.
I weep upon the cracked tombstones
Of my inner soul
I mourn for the shattered glass
That reflects my whole.

I feel not shame not regret
And guilt but rarely.
Sorrow seems to fill my soul
My heart is painted
With royal blue
And tainted with depression.

I am just writing here,
Slowly taking space.
No one desires to listen
All who do
Do so from pity.

I feel my friends
Are only there
Purely out of pity.
I **** up their time,
Replace it with mine,
I feel there is nothing worth living.

Upon this hour there are none
No one to wake me
From my sad silent revery
Of obsessed, depressed thought.
The dark is here,
And so am I
And all else
Is but a lie.

I want not sleep,
For I fear the dawn.
Bad as this night is,
That may be worse.

Honesty,
Honestly,
What does it
Mean?

If it means
No lies,
Then I am there
Already.

But if instead it means
All truths,
Then I have a long way
To go.

I want to share,
But I am afraid
Of saying too much,
Overstating the lines
In the sand.

To others I would talk,
But cannot,
For this is secret,
By the order of the 15th
Commandment.

Secret, She said.
I said fine.
No attachment, She said.
I'll try, I said.

No Jelousy
Fine.
No Relationship
Fine.
Just Friends
Fine.
No exclusivity
Fine.

Fine I said,
Again and again.
All was fine,
I said,
But all is not fine.

No attachment?
Too late.
No Jelousy?
I can try, but it will never work.
Just friends?
At least to me,
We are far more
Than that.

Secret,
That I can accept.
As for exclusivity,
I doubt she does this with everyone.

But if all is not fine,
Why do I say
It is?
It is because
I love her
And want to be
With her
Always
[Even when we
Are separated
By Three Thousand
Miles.]

And so any terms
I will accept.
For while the current ones
May be impossible,

They are Nothing,
Nothing at all
Compared to the
Emotional impossibility
Of being near her
But not
With
Her.

Upon the days twixt Rosh Ha-Shana
And Yom Kippur,
We are commanded to ask,
For our sins, forgiveness
From those to whom
We have committed them.
But when I think upon this,
Upon the year now passed,
Yea, I do find sins and many
But none so grievous and yet
Not too grievous that I cannot admit to them
Without great penalty
That I feel obliged to oblige tradition.
Rather what dwells upon me
Is less my sins
And more the opportunities
Passed by by me
And those which appeared but for a moment,
A flash in the pan of fate,
A horse,
Quickly Sprinted
Across the great green field
Of love,
The sun shining upon its back
And glorious mane
As it trampled past,
A fleeting moment
An eternal memory,
Leaving deep impressions
Upon the ground,
Ones that will not clear
For years, or maybe ever
Even as I try
To move past it
In at least some ways,
For I refuse to be
As lonely as I was
And Am.

A murderous melody rings now here,
Acurséd cacophony shouts now out
My mind begins its saddened bout
Stressing all little things there are to fear,
As this opening gape comes now but near,
The voices within me only loud shout,
As if they stood upon the Sinai Mount,
And the cliffs upon which I stand, so sheer.
I cannot hate it, this I know, ‘tis me
Yet all of me be, it surely cannot
Accept, adapt, and improve I now must,
Life shall move on no matter what I wrought,
A dry well this world does not, cannot be,
Shall, will, continue forth, no matter the dust.

They say be true,
No to me, true to you,
Be who you are.
When I entered school they said,
"There will be times
When you need help.
Ask your teachers."
But what they mean is
Be true,
Not to you,
But to you as I
Imagine you,
The you I want.
And ask for help, yes,
But only for your math
And history,
Don't talk to them about
Life or depression for
They are commanded to report that.
If you really need it,
They say,
Go to a therapist,
After you've already tried,
But don't you dare admit
That sometimes,
Some days you just want to
Take a knife 'gainst your skin
Slice down through the pores,
And let the warm red blood spill
'Cross your lap.

To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream,
Aye, there's the rub-
Hamlet.
For but now this quote runs,
Runs arampant 'cross my mind,
For therein it lies,
Ifaith, it hides,
But ne'er has it been
So much that I have seen
For what I thought was true
Was
Or was not
Forsooth,
'Twas but bumbling miscomunication
And yet,
And yet I truly felt as though
There was something there.
And there may be
And there may not be
For, ifaith, ifaith,
She hath not pondered long enough,
Nor deep enough
For her to know,
Thus spake she.
And so I shall wait for I,
I know how I feel of her,
And I know,
I know that I can wait,
And, ifaith,
I will wait until,
Till that day she makes her mind,
Or that the rainy clouds of emotions long confused part
And make way for that sun of inner knowledge,
For I,
I know how I feel of her.
And yet,
And yet I shall not,
I shall not let myself become obsessed,
Nor over-enamored,
For ifaith,
I cannot let myself
Harm myself
More than I have already.

My depression
Is not
My defining characteristic.
Do not treat me
As if it were.
For to say
That my depression defines me
Would be to admit defeat
And I am not done fighting
Yet.

I am he who brings thee thine sunset.
I am he that brings thee the dark night.
I am thee, thin ender of all days.
Thou art me, and forsooth,, I am thee.
Fight not me, For am I inside ou.
A royaled ruins, A prached beach, that thou art/
I am here, eternal, dark in mind.
The night shines on even in daylight.
Run on far, run away, escape me
Thou cannot, never shall, You are me.
I am you, all your whole, always there.
Forget me, for a day, then I come.
I come strong, roaring back, slicing the light.
I leave marks, never gone, know this now;
Hide me now, push me gone, I come back,
Stronger then, than ever, rule your life.
Own me no, I own you, own your soul.
Thy soul mine, thy body mine, own your all.
I am this, thy bully inside you.
The shadow in your light, cloud the day.
Thine rain all eternal, ever here,
Always there, present now, for all here
Forever, I am you, never done,
Ending when, only when, you do too.

The where the when the time the how, embark
The hope the dream the wish the want the strong
The pyre, fire, blazing through the dark
The need, ignored past due by far too long.
Wherein we feel its missing presence, true
But lack of it can only make it more
For while this leaves me often feeling blue
This distance is no match for human soul.
The need of me to move on is all real
And yet I so desire to stay, all time
But she has moved on leaving me alone
I want to say “I love you,” sounds as mime
And yet, for all of this, I shall walk too
But never forget you, despite all love anew.

A shared saliva,
Crossing twixt open lips,
Red and rosy as arms
Grab each other,
Bringing them closer,
Sharing and caring
In this intimate moment,
Nigh as close to a perfect moment
As our mortal existence
Can reach.

There is no name for this,
So it was invented.
There is no true description of this,
Yet all seem to think they know it.

They do not.
They may never,
I hope they never,
For it is not something I wish
Upon even Trump.

For it is worse
Than the depths of sorrow
For upon the morrow
There lies no hope.

Nothing seems to change,
All is the same,
Even as the world whizzes by.

Eagerly you with the morrow
Yet plainly with your great sorrow
You know that it shall be
No better.

Upon occasion there shall be
A good day for thee
And when it happens
You shall not want
To go to sleep
For upon the morrow
Lies nought
But uncertainty.

Hide it, you will.
Do not doubt
For many, upon hearing it
Would simply run away,
Afraid
As if it were
Contagious.

Others shall treat you strange,
Full of pity,
Surrounding you
With a ball of soft but numb.

Numb is worse than pain
For numb surrounds your pain
And you body loses feel
As you die inside.

Reality ceases to be
Reality,
This flesh and blood,
The rough of the splintering wood
Beneath the cheap crumbling paint
Of a number two pencil.

Reality ceases to be
The softness,
Too soft,
Of this grey jacket
With the fuzzy innards.

It ceases to be
The leathery feel
Of my blackened wrist-band
For my banged-up wrist-watch,
The smooth hard of the
Desk upon which I oft
Have laid my head.

It ceases to be
The cold of the blust'ry wind
Howling 'cross the trees,
The dark, damp, dismal grey
O'th clouds that crest our sky.

It ceases to be
All that I can see
Nigh on all I can hear,
For in this half-dreaméd state
In which I wake,
The intermittent sounds of life
Pertrueb upon the louder music
That permeates my dreams.

It remains solely
That which I can feel
Yet I feel numb,
Alone,
Cold and deadnéd as I ride
This night of death
Throughout the day,
Touch alone
The sense that grounds me,
Makes me see, if you will,
The great golden good
Of this here wood,
And by a wood to say
A world.

Depression is
Not feeling worthy
Of feeling bad.