Tryna brave the belly of the beast
But this enemy of me
Has got hands-

I’ve never metaphor for anxiety
Like this one
Imposter syndrome-

I was only a dark forest away
from who I needed to be
But feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy
Are twisting clouds so forebodingly 

Mara’s army fires arrows
Raining streams of self-consciousness
Like I wasn’t ready to self destruct
on impact -
detonation

I laugh and share memes of self-deprecation
Social media the new god
Where we worship ourselves
By constantly trying to impress
everyone else

Venmo me Dopamine tributes
With the truth in a cave of
depression and
Isolation

Maybe Holly’s right
And I do need to be here
She shines the light
On the darkness
In the hospital wing
5th floor at Evanston
But I’m afraid I’ve grown too codependent
On this astral plane
I’ve projected
And romanticized
these Ambien nights
Only to awake neglected
Screaming out her name
In sleep paralysis
On a dark night-


When I’m manic
I try to live it out like I’m in a movie
Projecting inner struggles
As external conflicts
To make the scene more interesting
Until I’m in this final battle alone like Odysseus
Lost all my friends when the monster ate our ship and I took em for granted caught up
Between a rock and a hard place-
Depressed and Hyper-sexualization
when spring is here again

I’m in the first act dip
edging the ******-
Stimulating the simulation

You’re no Harley Quinn
But you romanticize mental illness
Like a comic book villain-
It’s comedically tragic
To play with the full deck
Devoid the Joker

The worst part about mental health
Isn’t keeping it a secret
It’s just the revolution glamorized
To sell you more ****;

A little death
    begins at the end.

You keep telling them how woke you are
     Wish you’d smash the snooze

9 minute rhetoric In reverie-
Peel your eyes from the screen
Enlightened by one source
it’s their truth written
All
Over
Your
Face
And you say you won’t wear a mask;

Checking on old friends
in a new year-
means getting met
by a Memorial Page

Remembering you
Getting blazed listening to Cudi
While we turnt up and laughed as our friends ****** in the next room;

In the pursuit of happiness, you were gone and forgotten too soon
Until social media flashes memories
Between things it tries to sell me
And this legacy-
It’s that time of the year I’d be at ISU
getting high with the Man on the Moon

Living with a too late afterthought -
I should have been there for you
Life gets in the way
What can I say
I’m always on my own *******
I’m sorry if I ever let you down
I just wish I didn’t find out you were dead through Facebook;

It’s a new year of isolation
Check on your ******* friends;

My heart is an abandoned mosh pit;
I miss you beating the **** out of me in cadence-
some sonic *******
thrashing through the motions
moaning the music through my body electric
with liberation lashes enlighting me up.
I miss leaving mused and abused
dripping of our sweat-
Left writhing and pulsating in an echo chamber screaming my lungs out pretending to sing along with you-
working every ounce of energy out of me until you’re fulfilled
and I feel less vacant;

We live in an era of sociopath glamorization,
virtually devoid of empaths.

Welcome to the Evil Empire-
but first,
let me take a selfie;