hello. it’s been a while, hasn’t it?
i keep forgetting you exist—
pardon me, then again all offense—
but for some reason you stay
at the back of my head.

stop killing me within my chest.
i’m not a toy; you can’t take me
and break me
and hope for the best—
even though i’m probably better off dead.

and i can’t take you anywhere,
can i? you’re the blank spot,
the kettle (***?)
the pink elephant in the room.
no one likes you, so get out—

soon.

i have my whole story ahead of me.
i have to take the next step, build a life,
watch it fail (sorry, your influence
seems to prevail)
but survive. you can’t **** me.

(yeah, sorry, i know you can)

BUT YOU CANNOT CONSUME

(yeah, okay sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry—please,
don’t take me back to the emergency room)

i am not a poet.
i do not take thoughts,
spin them on the page,
and give them breath
the way a little man
spins gold from straw.

i am not a dreamer.
i do not ponder the stars,
wonder if they cry
or smile or laugh
or if the sheep dreams
of androids and muzzles.

i am not romantic,
with ideals of flowers—
carnations, forget-me-nots,
daisies—or letters of blood
with the alphabet
blazing a hole in the heart.

i am a person;
just that.
just that.

my depression is made of stitches

—of little tears in the patchwork
where the birds nibble away
at the seeds in my heart,
at the emptiness too ****
—what can love here impart?

oh sweetheart, love,
it is not that you are lacking—
your care is not slacking,
my heart is not cracking,
please don’t go packing—

but your love slips through my holes.

there's a lot to feel looking over this sight.
you're so high up and so far down that
here, the sky is a formality and the concrete
might be invisible to your eyes.
like this, something seems to hover in the air.
what it might be and what it would be—
i wonder perhaps if i should care.
as i peer over the edge of the world's bed sheet,
i can see it, yes, the depth i would fall:
six feet under ground, sublimating like alcohol.

One afternoon he awoke
suddenly from a reverie,
and he sat up, hands
on his knees, cried a plea—
“Please, take me back
to a world without me.”

And me, I looked at him,
didn’t frown, didn't stutter,
held his face, met his eyes,
and replied with a shudder—
“Love, it’s me, it’s your mother."

if only i weren't so lonely—
then i'd have something to do with my life.

having depression is a bit like
leading yourself on a leash,
only the leash is really a noose
and the one leading it can’t see.
it’s like suffocating slowly
between your own trembling hands
and a bit like drowning under water
as you whimper and wobble and stand.
it’s like wrapping wounds with cyanide,
and breathing ammonia and mercury;
it’s like dowsing in caustic acid
as you perform your own heart surgery.
depression is like laughing and
stitching tiny sutures into your skin,
but for every step you take, something—
something, **** it—
something tears again.

be honest with me.
it has to hurt a little,
right? it always does.

but when it does hurt,
slow down and say it with me:
things will get better.

mondays are my off days,
tuesdays are my sad days;
on wednesdays i can laugh.

thursdays, though, i'll cry,
and fridays are very tiring;
still, saturdays are wonderful,

but sundays i want to die

is it wrong to feel sadness
for the only sadness you've
known? misery isn't a

*******

competition.

i'd like to stick a needle through my neck:
through cartilage and sinew, and leave a speck—
i'd leave a speck so small you'll have to
look real hard and squint your eyes
and get real close to see just why, just why
i can't talk about it anymore.