Sometimes I whisper the words, “Are you okay?” into the empty air I breathe just to hear what it would be like to feel someone care, but who am I to change the convention of the polite and smiling reply of, “I’m good. How are you?” Would anyone really know how to react if I actually said that it depends on the day you ask me?

The truth is,
today
I’m not okay.

I don’t know what I will get each time the… (I would say the sunlight opens my eyelids, but let’s be real here; I don’t really sleep anymore.)… I know why this happened to me the first time, but now? Maybe it’s because I learned how to feel again. I guess depression doesn’t really need a reason, though, does it? At the very least there is a big difference between now and seven years ago.

This time, I know my worth. This time, I’m fighting back, instead of drowning in it. This time, I am strong. And this time… I don’t want to die.

This time, I am actually reaching out for a hand to silently hold mine just to comfort me for even a minute. The only problem is everyone else has a life too. People love to say, “I’m here for you,” and, "I’m praying for you,” but they are too busy to actually to that.

Every day I get up just before the crack of dawn to lace my running shoes and pump my legs long enough to replace the stale state of my lungs to something fresh and clean. It’s the one thing I feel I have control over in my life.  It’s my chance to get out and feel like I’m a part of the world before the rest of the world wakes up and reminds me that I’m just a tiny piece of it.

For most of my life, I’ve felt like I am the missing piece to a puzzle that I can’t find. I’ve always felt different in a way I don’t know how to put into words. It’s just a sense of myself I don’t feel I need to explain. Not long ago, that feeling started to go away, but I think God may have misplaced me when he tried to fit my pieces together.

There’s a silver castle on my way to freedom, but I can never quite reach it, and there’s a silence that swallows me whole each time I steal a glance in its direction. Today, I am not okay. Tonight, I just pray that the next time my feet step out of bed and onto the soft carpet of the home I finally found for myself, I will feel a little bit better.

I suppose that’s all I can ask for at this point.

There’s a note
hidden in the melodies
that sing to me as I drive.
It is faint,
but I hear it
louder than my morning alarm.
I can almost feel God’s embrace
wrapping me until I’m warm again.

A smile envelops my mandible
as weary laugh escapes my teeth.
This is what they call clarity.

Sometimes,
you don't need words
or phrases
or prayers.

Sometimes,
you just need
someone to sit with you silently,
stripped of cliches,
and just be there.

I put a photo of my grandparents up in my house today.
They were married almost sixty years before my grandmother passed away.
I didn’t appreciate their love until I lost my grandfather last December.
I guess as hopeless of a romantic as I am,
I haven’t been able to grasp the possibility that it’s ever in the cards for me,
at least that kind of love,
And my problem is that I will settle for nothing less.

I was afraid of you the moment I met you,
and the more I learned about you,
the more I knew you would have the ability to hurt me.
I can still feel the way the heat of your arms enveloped me
the night I realized I was letting you into my heart.
I quietly rolled away from you and sobbed the softest but sweetest tears
I have ever tasted.
As terrified as I was,
I didn’t think you would ever break me.

Perhaps break isn’t the correct term;
Let’s just say I’m perpetually bruised.
I don’t think you can really be broken by someone
who didn’t even give you a chance to love them.

I’ve been avoiding writing about you for three months.
You see,
I didn’t think my words could do you justice,
I didn’t think my brain could describe
the knots,
and the butterflies,
and the confusion,
and the heaviness,
and the complete fury
that sometimes overwhelms me.
And every time I finally feel like I’m starting to get a grip,
every time I finally have a second to breathe,
someone pushes the fastest setting on the treadmill beneath me,
until I tumble backwards into the wall where I started.

I have so many words I want to speak,
but I hear nothing every time I open my mouth to scream.
Class isn’t a fun quality to have sometimes.

You don’t even deserve my words right now,
And I gave you the ones that mattered anyway.
I guess you just weren’t paying attention.
So let me leave you with only this,
but please make sure you memorize
every curve
of every letter
that forms every word
that means more to me than I will ever let you know:

You
are
better
than
this.

You
deserve
better
than
this.

­And
once
you
figure
that
out,

Don’t
you
dare
ever
forget
it.

Have you ever woken up from a dream
where you didn’t realize you were asleep?
Where one minute,
you think you are rolling around in bed,
frustrated that you’ve woken up at 4am,
wishing you could magically get the screams in your head
to diminish to a whisper,
but an alarm grasps at your eyelids
until you realize that you’ve awoken
and were asleep all along?

Is that what this life is right now?
Am I going to wake up one day,
and suddenly the insecurities,
the unimportance,
the nothingness,
and the apathy
will be gone?
Will I wake up and stop being an afterthought?
Your I’m-here-for-you’s,
I’ll-help-keep-you-busy’s,
and I’ve-been-praying-for-you’s
don’t mean anything to me anymore.

I finally have everything I have been awaiting
for years,
but it's not enough anymore,
and yet,
here I am – again–
realizing the only friend I can trust
is myself.

I finished high school a decade ago;
I thought I was too old for this now.

There’s a strange satisfaction
in the tranquil pounding of feet on pavement
against the quiet whispers of the sunrise
over a morning’s dreary eyes,
when the world is about to rise,
and your unaccompanied flesh is its alarm,
like the soft ripple of a rock
skipping against the water.

I came here to stop feeling,
but instead I feel everything.
The hum of the wind beneath my eardrum
is a lullaby for my loneliness,
and the cotton candy sky is begging
for my mercy.

A few months ago,
this was the key to my fulfillment,
but somewhere along the way,
you went and changed the lock.
I tried to call a repairman,
but my throat froze
and my chest burst
the moment he stopped by.

I’m not sure what brought me here
or why,
but eventually
I’ll breathe again.
For today
I’ll simply close my eyes
and pray that the light that floods my corneas
when my lashes meet lid
brings brightness to this twilight mood,
and someday the repairman will allow me
to lift this weight from my chest.