I've had an off and on relationship over the years,
as many people in the world have.
However usually that involves another person,
while homelessness has always been my veiled mistress.
The last couple weeks have been awfully tough,
as the unrelenting weather has ferociously tested my will.
Wind, grinding away anything close to smiles,
Hail, battering my already bruised body,
Sun, sapping what little strength I have left,
Cold, freezing the very blood flowing in my veins.
Rain, wiping away my very identity.
Now, I'm just a ghost, wandering through town,
clothes tattered and torn, mismatched shoes,
grizzled face, eyes masking a deeper pain,
wondering when, or if, there will be another meal.
Not that a source of food is all a home is,
but it brings with a sense of warmth, safety, love.
I guess I just wish I had something like that.

Bursting at the seams,
desperately trying to use
a needle and thread to sew myself together.
Hopefully,
no one will notice the stitches.

Heaven forbid,
I open like a teddy bear
and all the stuffing falls out.
I've already spent too much time
trying to hold everything together.

Opening up,
becoming vulnerable, losing that soft tissue
makes that poor bear lumpy,
feeling undesired.
He's not the only one.

"No one will ever love you until you love yourself."
Its a phrase that's easy to believe is true,
but for people who suffer from depression,
its terrifying.

I mean, as the expression goes,
I have to love myself first,
before I can accept that others do.
But what if you can't stand the person in the mirror?

Depression is something that has been a fixed constant
for as long as I can remember,
as if it has hallowed out my bones
and created a home.

With every moment, every thought,
I feel this deep rooted pain,
a nagging presence,
second-guessing every minuscule detail.

My depression doesn't care
if I'm trying to enjoy myself.
It doesn't care if I'm surrounded by people
who constantly argue that its irrational.

I know its irrational, there isn't a day that goes by
that I don't wish with every fiber of my being that I could simply
turn it off.
Praying I can wake up one day and the nightmare will be over.

I am thankful I have friends around me
that are able to help juggle my mood inconsistencies
or draw a map that leads to a treasure of momentary
escape from this tight hold.

I cannot express my gratitude enough for those
wonderful human beings that express great hope
while I stumble down the darkest of paths,
unfortunately, most days, it isn't enough.

I have never once blamed anyone for that,
and I appreciate their efforts,
as well as I try and recognize the strain they are put through
as best as I can.

This thought process controls how I communicate.
I am constantly plagued by guilt,
knowing that my pain causes empathetic, pain-filled responses.
"I'm sorry", "I apologize" phrases as common as corn fields in Nebraska.

This guilt
stems from the fact that I hate
how my feelings, or me in general,
can cause so much pain in someone else.

Every day is a struggle. Constantly on edge,
bouncing between caring too much or not at all.
Afraid that the next thing will be the final push,
wondering when enough will be enough.

While I am quickly reminded over and over
how my friends are 100% in,
I am also quickly met, internally,
by a crippling doubt.

There's a funny little rhyme
about sticks and stones.
As if broken bones could ever amount
to the words and hate filled "jokes"
directed at the outcasts.
Broken heartstrings bleeding the blues
as we try to empty ourselves and feel nothing at all,
don't you dare tell me that hurts less
than a broken bone.
As if depression and emptiness
can be healed by a simple first aid kit.
Every year bullies restock their arsenal
of pain inducing attempts at tearing people down.
If a kid breaks, and no one is there to hear it,
do they make a sound?
Or are they just washed out background noise
as the dismissed phrases like
"kids can be cruel" or "you know how kids can be"
are stuck on repeat?
We cannot allow that to happen.
For if you cannot see the beauty in yourself,
get a better mirror,
look a little closer,
stare a little longer.
There has to be something inside you
that made you keep trying
when everyone tried their hardest to get you to
quit.
Something that helped you put a cast
on that broken heart.
Something that resonated, deep within you that
they were wrong.
They have to be.
I mean, why else would we still be here?
We grew up cheering on the underdog,
because we see ourselves in them.
So you can sit there and recite
"names will never hurt me".
Of course they did.
But that's okay.

I went to the park today
and marveled at the ducks gliding across the pond.
Above the surface,
smooth sailing, graceful, serene.
When just below,
their webbed feet,
kicking like hell,
struggling to keep going.

Today's Father's Day
Well..
For me...
its just another

Sunday

Over the past week and a half or so,
I've had a recurring dream.
Now, I have no prophetic powers
so I spend quite a bit of time contemplating
the meaning.
Essentially, it is a collection of every
nightmare, darkness, fear that I have ever had.

The dream starts with me sitting in an auditorium
with everyone I have ever known.
I am called to the stage,
then each of my so called friends proceeds to
publicly pelt me with every imaginable
instrument of torture that my flesh has known.
Time does not seem to follow the same rules
in this pseudo-reality
what feels like days translates to minutes,
takes an hour to equate to a lifetime.

After hobbling away from that chaos,
I search for a place to hide,
only to find verbal assaults and derogatory onslaughts
coming from twisted, distorted faces,
of shadowed figures.
Yet they seem
familiar.
Something about them just feels like I know these sources
of festering pain, exactly like when you get a cold sore
and can't stop tonguing it. You know its there,
but you make sure, because there is a small glimmer of hope,
that the next time you check, it'll be gone.
It never is. That sore clings like a parasite.

Finally, I am able to escape these creatures,
reaching a small, little town, shrouded in fog.
Sewage drains overflowing with blood,
mutilated corpses as commonplace as garden gnomes,
unnerving screams off in the distance.
Battered and broken, I will my body to overcome
following one of these shrieks into a dark alley.
I am unable to make out her face,
but this woman is cornered by three feral monsters,
without eyes, sharp, pointed claws, bodies stained red with blood
of their past victims.
Picking up a lead pipe,
I unleash primal brutality I never thought I was capable of,
obliterating the clawed creatures.
Finally letting down my guard, I turn to the woman
who shoots me, in the forehead, with a revolver.

My body is recovered, and a funeral is held.
Four people show up.
The preacher, my mom, dad, and sister.
After a very fire and brimstone sort of sermon
focusing on all the immoral deemed decisions
I have made throughout my life,
each member of my family gives their own "eulogy".
However, as opposed to high praise,
they each articulate how their quality of life
would significantly improve,
without me in it.
Sister saying how she can get all the attention,
mom saying how uplifting it will be to not have me
as a financial, emotional, and overall bothersome burden.
Dad says he can put all the belts, coat hangars, wrenches, bats away.
There is no one left for him to punish, to "put them in their place."
They light my casket on fire, cackling in euphoric laughter.

Then I wake up, if I'm lucky. I don't always make it to the end.