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

‘freedom is a state of mind’
Wars fought
Wars lost
Freedom gained
Freedom lost.
The mind is almost devoid of peace,
When a beast sits entrapped inside.
It is like two magnets of the same charge.
Conflicting and warring,
Trying to meet at a certain point.

Barbed wires of suppression
blunt knives of oppression
The head is a place of chaos
full of:
‘I’m guilty’ ‘No you are not’
‘I’m too proud’ ‘no you are not’
The oppressor just mollifies the pain of the suppressor
It is too weak to overcome it.
The head then bursts
And out flow tears, tears in a million shades
For they signify such different sorrowful tastes
The person, he sighs
An empty mind
Peaceful mind
War fought
War won
Freedom lost
Freedom *gained

Love

Love

This silly thing we call Love.

This idea of euphoria, that exceeds any drug.

Love

Love

It drives us poets out o' our minds

when we sit down to write, seems it's the topic all the time.

Love

Love

it's a funny little word

no definition could quite fit it, but yet none sound too absurd

Love

Love

some say it keeps them going

It's a **** in the garden, that simply won't stop growing

Love

Love

if it's true it don't stop

even if you won't admit it, there's someone in your thoughts

Love

Love

it's what I feel for you

and darling after all this time, I pray you still do too.

“Are you OK?” “Yeah.”
Not really, but you wouldn't understand

“How are you feeling?” “Great.”
Terrible but I can’t tell you because you’d ask why

“Where’d you get that cut?” “Rollerblading accident.”
That’s always the perfect excuse

“Is there anything you’d like to confess to?” “No.”
Yes

“Do you regret anything?” “Yeah, going ice skating.”
Being born.

“Have you felt sad lately?” “No, I’m really happy.”
I feel sad all the time

“Why were you crying?” “Just finished a sad book.”
You don’t want to know

“What book?” “Looking For Alaska.”
The book that told the story of my life

“Are you sure you’re OK?” “Definetly.”
*Definitely not

I know that insecurity isn't pretty,
*which is how I also know that I'm not beautiful

i.

they say that when you drown,
it's nothing like in the movies;
it's silent.
there's no splashing,
no screaming,
no kicking or crying for help.

just
silence.

and i guess it's true,
for i am drowning --
there is water in my lungs,
pouring into my heart,
filling my veins and escaping from my eyes --
yet i cannot speak.

i am rendered speechless
by you.

ii.

i'm not so sure if it's
the smooth white sand
ingrained in your skin,

or the intricate seashells
that are your daintily painted
fingernails.

maybe it's the pulsing red
of a moon during high tide
that shines through
your scarlet lips,

or maybe
it's the crashing waves
filling the ocean in your eyes.

maybe it's the way you sweep me up
and pull me under,
stealing my breath,
invading my thoughts.

or maybe it's how you
are unpredictable.
you are in alliance with the erratic skies
and fickle moon,
and yet,
no one can control you,
no one can predict your next move.

iii.

i find it fascinatingly beautiful
how easy it is
for you to destroy yourself,
how you hide within raging whirlpools
and tear yourself apart from the inside.

people are afraid of the ocean,
but the ocean is a part of you.
who knows, though?
maybe you're scared of the ocean too.

iv.*

beware the girl with the ocean eyes,
for a heart that is eaten away by the sea
can never be whole again.*

(a.m.)