Your driver's license
says your eyes are brown, but I
know better than that

this time you're really
dying, and all i can do
is sit back and watch

Depression
is not romantic
it is not
tear drops on rusty guitar strings
accompanying a soft trembling voice
it is not
cigarette smoke from soft lips
highlighted by pale moonlight through the window
it is not
bitter black coffee in recycled paper cups
discussing how much it can compare itself to you
it is not
somber solace found in between the lines she wrote
displayed as the flower-adorned suicide note you hang in your locker
it is not
being held as you weep
your lover's soul pouring into your cold body
it is not
a gentle touch wiping away your tears
and fixing what was never broken
it is not
romantic at all
and it is not
yours
and you can not
tell me
that my depression
is a human
or any sort of noun
when you've never felt it verb
through your temples
and it is not
yours
and you can not
tell me
that there's anything
romantic
about it

There once was a boy who felt hollow
The hole inside him grew and swallowed
He filled it with flowers
For hours and hours
But still, deep in pain he would wallow

There once was a boy who felt empty
His troubles he thought no one else'd see
Locked away he'd cry
Til the day that he died
And never saw, next to him there, me

There once was a boy who felt alone
He wore himself right down to the bone
I did all I could
Loved him more than I should
If only, if only he'd known

There’s a sick, sad little space
between tea spoons and midnight
where the teeth on your fingertips chatter
and the ink in your forearm prattles on
about which bone you’re going to pull out this time
and how your chapped lips taste like poetry
but your dry eyes can’t bend around the prosody
and it’s in that space that my clothes turned into feathers
and flew away with the *****
the one that pipes out those same four chords
and tempered breath made into rotting elephants on sale
but the bazaar called for more than just pennies
and I don’t think my cough medicine blinks enough
to make this dance hall stop spinning

There's a hole in my chest where your soul used to be
One day he decided he'd rather be free
I begged and I pleaded but he just couldn't see
Then he floated away, screaming "please rescue me"

There's a hole in my chest where your soul used to be
But my ribs held no comfort, unfortunately
As he drifted away while I flew toward the sea
I cried out, "I'm sorry," and hoped he believed.