Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines

they do not know you.
they only know your name,
your face, your skin,
your eyes, your fears,
your cries, your hair,
your smile, your voice,
your dreams, not you.
baby, they do not know you.
no one does; not even you.

I tried to start my day without coffee
It was harder than it first seemed
My get up and go left me in the dust
I had a caffeine withdrawal headache so bad I felt I might scream
I seemed to move slow like a scene of the zombies from The Walking Dead
I thought I should not  have gotten out of bed
I realize that this is nothing a few cups of coffee could not fix
I can hardly wait to drink that brew
I toast to all of you!

I must have been the captain of our relation
Because I'm the one going down with the ship
Sails were set high in the wind
Only for the boat to flip
The waves got rocky and the skies grew dark
When you suddenly went overboard and became a shark
At least the waters cleansing as it swallows me down
And I hold you in my heart as a lovely way to drown