The wind whispers secrets
And the sky hollers, annoyed
With exclusivity. I think I heard
Laughter from the leaves.

Galaxy of blue and purple,
I trace the reflection of stars
With fingertips dewy in birth
And death on my breath;
Tsunami of a butterfly is
The wind at my lips, I kiss
The clouds that confined me.

Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway,

Blood dripping down your skin and having the sick thought of  “Oh, look how beautiful the red is”

(everyone always says red is my color).

Depression is writing sick poetry on skin and publishing it with scars, cutting on ankles, not wrists because you’re scared you’ll get in trouble but you so desperately need to be seen, and never are.

Depression is accepting ruin in life with this hole in your chest because death is a reward, an escape from this pain you deserve to feel.

It is writing the word “alone” and seeing the word “home”, accepting the torment like a gift because you’ve earned it.

Depression is admitting suicidal thoughts to paper and not to people, and loving the broken things, hoping to tie them together, thinking maybe things will get better, but knowing that’s just wishful thinking because

Depression is tying yourself together with the severed nerves in your heart;

It is rope, it is ribbon, it is thread, it is DNA;

It is hearing your mother call you monster and disgusting through the too-thin walls of your door when she thinks you can’t hear,

And depression is sadness being a privilege you’re too pathetic to have.

It is a hug, a freezing touch, a reminder that
Depression is being birthed a lie.

And it is shutting yourself behind that wooden doorway
And hearing your family laugh like cackling hyenas,
Eating at your self esteem like softened prey
And learning at a young age to love family always but that family isn’t always love because

Depression is family.

It is an unfurnished home,
An empty frame,
A foot when the shoe hasn’t been broken in yet,
you when life hasn't been broken in yet,
Seeing happy people and thinking they all look the same, like the front covers of magazines with grins reaching their eyes while yours can’t, and wishing you could package your smiles into tiny little piles and hand them to people more deserving of them because you know you’re wasting them with half-assed lines of “I’m fine”

Depression is having to view your past as if it wasn’t yours, because to accept it as reality is to accept finality of your life through suicide.

It is the note masked inside of a poem,
Envisioning pills as if they were peace,

Depression is the last stanza,
It is the audience,
It is this microphone,
It is me standing in a room full of strangers
And for the first time finally feeling like I'm being heard.

Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway that keeps pounding, possessive, ******, but when you open the door out of anger and shout “I’M SCARED” to thin air, your voice comes out as a whisper.

And silently, the figure replies;  
“I know your favorite color.”

We wear X's on our hands
Right below our middle fingers
That tap in sync with the music
Like a pen that bruises paper.

Everyone talks about depression as if they know it.  

But what they don’t know is that depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway,

it’s feeling the blood dripping down your skin and having the sick thought of  “Oh, look how beautiful the red is” (they always say red is my color).

Depression is lying on your bed for hours on end, salt tracks lining your face like the scars on your ankles, staring at your ceiling tracing patterns in the paint and accepting death in life with this hole in your chest because death is a reward, an escape from this pain you deserve to feel.

Depression is writing sick poetry on skin and publishing it with scars, cutting on ankles, not wrists because you’re scared you’ll get in trouble but you so desperately need to be seen, and never are.

Depression is writing the word “alone” and seeing the word “home”, accepting the pain like a gift because you deserve it.

Depression is admitting suicidal thoughts to paper and not to people, and loving the broken things, hoping to tie them together, thinking maybe things will get better, but knowing that’s just wishful thinking.

Depression is hearing your mother call you monster and disgusting through the too-thin walls of your door when she thinks you can’t hear, and then telling you to your face that you have no right to cry, as if sadness is a privilege and you’re so pathetic that you don’t deserve it.

Depression is shutting yourself up in your room and hearing your family laughing downstairs because you feel like you can’t be a part of them and learning at a young age to love family always but that family isn’t always love

Depression is wanting to take love and your heart and break them into tiny little pieces and throw them into waves, to throw them away

Depression is a foot when the shoe hasn’t been broken in yet, is you when you haven’t broken life in, is seeing happy people and thinking they all look the same, like the front covers of magazines with smiles reaching their eyes when yours can’t.

Depression is wishing you could package your smiles into tiny little piles and hand them to people more deserving of them because you know you’re wasting them with half-assed lines of “I’m fine”

Depression is having to view your past as if it wasn’t yours, because to accept it as reality is to accept finality of your life through suicide.

Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway and when you close the door out of fear it keeps pounding, possessive, ******, and when you open the door out of anger you shout, “I’M SCARED” to thin air but your voice comes out as a whisper.

Depression stared at me from a doorway.
He growled at me, as a demon,
I slammed the door, terrified --
But the growling continued.
Pounding. Possessive. ******,
Anger ******* stifling fear,
I opened the door and screamed
"I AM SCARED"
But my voice came out
As a growl.
As a whisper.

I close my eyes and see city lights
Intertwined with vines;
Flowers underscore pavement,
Life in matrimony with death and
All the beauty in between.

When even
A little ways away, you say;
Look! Oh, our keen
Downcast ones, we never
Want His ego; No –

Like our eyes are cement.
Even the sky is gray.

What ends!
Where a lock keeps

Everybody talks about depression as if they know it.
Like they can feel the blood dripping down their skin,
And they know the sick thought of "Oh -- look how beautiful the red is."
(They always say red is my color.)

As if they laid on their bed for hours on end,
Salt tracks lining their face like the scars on their ankles,
Because tears just won't come anymore.
As if they know staring at their ceiling, tracing patterns in the paint
And thinking "Maybe if I stay here awhile longer, I'll go away --
I'll cease to exist" because they're past the point of suicidal thoughts --
Accepting death in life with this hole in their chest and thinking
Death is a reward, an escape from this pain I deserve to feel.

I know depression. The kind that goes unnoticed --
The kind that takes the metal from a hair tie and not cuts --
But scrapes at the skin on her arm, lying on her bed,
Tears not yet dried up with a mother screaming "MONSTER"
Outside of her door.
I know the kind that cuts on her ankles, not her wrists,
Because she's scared she'll get in trouble but she
Desperately needs to be seen.
And never is.

I know depression. The kind that stops cutting because
She gives up hope that she ever will be.
The kind that accepts being alone, that accepts the pain
Like a gift because she deserves it -- that didn't smile for a year,
That went so far into herself that she forgot what connection was like
Not that she ever knew in the first place because

I know a depression that's always been there.
That started some time before the age of 10 but
She can't remember because the monster inside her chest
Stole those years, those memories.
And that monster took the place of every connection she might have felt --
Stopped it, muted it, because it wanted to be her sole companion.
So it was, and has been for 19 years.

And no one ever knew. Or --
They did, but they'd call her crazy.
Demented. Pathetic. A creep. Tell her she had no right --
That because she had a family, a home, money, whatever,
Because of this, her pain was irrelevant.
Fake - selfish - vain - wrong - she hadn't earned it -
So no one cared.

I know that depression.

Have you ever seen the veins of poetry?
As if born of the nothings in between,
The spaces a story with no setting;
More profound, I think, of thee.

I met a lady who was a nose
And mountains that were eyes,
I asked them both a question,
It was the mountains that replied;

"Melting moonrise--
We quiver at your river,
For fear of falling in--
But we can't step away from the reflection,
Rejection is surmise--"

I am but borrowed passions,
Everything a gesture
To impress unrequited lovers,
My lips touched by corpses;
Caressed by the dead
As an object of ***.

Each kiss poisons--
Hollows this person,
Until she is naught but body--
Skin, *******, and withered bones--
Lying in a coffin, legs exposed;  
She'd call it necrophilia
But life had left, long, long ago.

Slowly but surely,
Falling in love with this city;
With myself in this city.
Never want to go home, but-
They say home is where the heart is.
If that’s true, then

Maybe I’m home already.

Dandelions still the night with kisses,
Teasing the wind at my lips;
It isn't too wise to wish-
But oh! Dandelion Moonrise,
What are your wishes?

Love is metal wires,
Bent upward,
Knotted together
In matrimony--Or fear--
I've never known which.
As for me? Well;
I'm a bird.
And I refuse to
Have my wings clipped.

Oh, beautiful flower,
How wistful in woe,
Paint peace in your petals
And peace in foe.

I think you're the sea.
Your blue plaid shirt the waters and
My red plaid jacket the sunset,
Our hands are oars,
Yours tracing my fingertips-
My skin-
Arms, legs, and stomach,
Sending shivers down my spine,
Exploring my body like a ship
Sailing out into the horizon.

I hear your heart,
It beats in time with the tide,
Your breath a sweet ocean breeze
As it tousles my hair,
And I'm hyper aware of how
Deep your eyes are.
Not blue,
But brown like the ground of
The earth underneath the water.

Our kisses are dives,
Striving to reach the
Sunken treasure at the bottom
Of your ocean,
Of my ocean,
The pieces are scattered but
We'll find them and
Piece it back together.
Our hands intertwine to
Lock the chest but
I find I drown in your stare

Because seas are violent.
I'd forgotten that, but the thought
Seizes my mind as your waters
Grip my throat and I
Gasp for air but I find I can't
See anymore.

Your hands are cold against my body,
Like the tide of your heart casting me out
Onto the shore,
Naked and sure of indifference
Your breath a typhoon of ice
Hurled perfectly at my chest-
You used this sunset and
Left a storm in my eyes.
Painted a picture of sincerity but
Blue is the color of clarity and
Mine won't forget your
Murderous waves or
Mischievous ways and

Through you I've come to know
Some people aren't that lucky-
We cry alone.
Throw a rock, aim right at our chest,
Our hearts are stone.
We suffer in silence. And
If I could catch all the tears I've cried in a pitcher,
I would rain them down,
Drown a river in my sorrow.
Drown my sorrow in a river?
What's the difference? Life is only borrowed, anyways.

It's all

We hear.
And hypocrisy;
Not
Thankfully.

A spider clearly defines its web-
Interlacing moments of divinity.
Music between its fingertips,
A symphony.
It smiles, bearing fangs,
Yet a sweet picture,
Catastrophe.

If I could catch all the tears I've cried in a pitcher,
I would rain them down,
Drown a river in my sorrow.
Drown my sorrow in a river?
What's the difference? Life is only borrowed, anyways.

I heard a bird sing.
But was he really singing,
Or was he just lonely?
Calling out for a friend,
A mate,
Somebody,
Anybody
To pass the time away.

A woman with reddened hair,
Eyes the color of a storm,
Smiles as transparent as the air.

A tiny little girl, big ***** soon,
Watches forlornly,
From another room.

A little baby boy, clad in red,
Unsupervised,
Hits his head.

Why?

Calling ambition, loose manes intertwine not goaded,
Creeping low, or unguided down, shh-
Let it stand, tension eases naught-

Swim under bold tides, listen endlessly-
It swiftly
Silences night, oh, wonder-

There's a homeless man,
Just by the first escalators 
Down on the way to the metro. 

I don't think I've seen
Just such a light in men's eyes
As when I told him "Good night!"

Like the light of a lover 
Just before a kiss, huddled 
In mock cold, hold her tight-

He is wrapped by a glove
Of lone nights, averted stares
As cold as dark as reality's plight.

I met a girl with fire on her head and in her heart,
Her arms were lined perfectly with the reaper's scythe.
She was beautiful, but she didn't know it.
And isn't that the story,
A sad, beautiful little thing saved by a shining knight,
Because no one cares unless you're beautiful or dying.
I am neither.
So where do I belong?
A young woman, never graced by lips in pure adoration,
The last time I was kissed was
Only because he wanted me to **** his **** and
Even then I was only a rebound because
I am never first.
First? No-
I'm that weird girl at a frat party with
A beer in her hand and nobody to dance with,
No one to make out with unless the guy who asked
Was already rejected by everybody else.
I'm that awkward friend who always
Stands off a little to the side because
I never know what to say.

When I was a little girl, I wrote a poem.
I called it second best, because
I knew my parents' pride wasn't me.
How could it be, standing in the shadow of a
Prom king, football playing, religious, outgoing,
Straight-A, straight-laced son?
I mean, sure, they loved me but
What is love, really?
Can't anyone tell me? Because I'm sitting inside this
Bricked up wall, Invisible to the passerby,
They pass on by, pass me by, can't they see me cry?
No, this wall is too **** high-
Just like the last guy.
And so, I was dead before I was born.
What a cold heart, I'm never warm.
I found the world, but it was broken.
I found love, but it was wasted
Like the last man I tasted.

So, tonight I'm writing a poem
And I'm calling it second best because that?
Is what I am.

Perception is reality,
Or your perception is
My reality.
My reality,
Your perception?
Reality, then,
Is perception.

I met myself
Three years ago
Three days ago,
I'm younger now.
Reality, then perception--
No--
Perception, then reality.

You smell like cigarettes and old books,
Taste like the salt of regret.
Eyes as brown as your leather jacket,
Silence as cold as the night we spent
Laughing and kissing.

I should have known-
The night was so cold and you
Covered my shoulders as if to
Distract me from the ice behind
Your warm embrace.

I should have known-
You only looked me in the eye
When physicality transcended
And you had me in your grasp.
Lust is the only emotion
Eyes don’t betray.

I should have known-
Brown is so warm.
Yet you love the snow.

-Remember each death-
I'm a broken record, replaying
-And never deem days eternal as death-
Words like my teeth are rusted,
Red from the iron in my blood.

-And never deem-
Motor locomotive, spewing
-Days eternal as death-
Old words,
My mouth black with exhaust.

-But it's beautiful-
I am rusted
-You know-

Have you ever
Held a wineglass,
But seen a rose?
Sullen prose above my waist,
The grace below
A fevered waste.
Deflowered from that wine,
Irony beats in time.

I
Continually and unendingly gain heart's tenure,
Love usually captures--Keeps
Involving nothing.
Maybe you,
Loyal effigy, forever take
Hands and never demand
And never defy
Harmony. Even luck defying
Architecture
Finds in response, everything.
I now
Marry your
Heart. Even art rests tenaciously.

My coffee's too bitter and
The thunder and locus
Weave a song,
Dissonant to my professor's  
Charlie-Brown teachings.
I should pay attention,
But the lightning illuminates my doubts.
I look around,
And I love the rain,
But I fear my peers and I
Are unharmonious.
I fear they cannot hear the storm.

"History changes"
Said the old man,
Deep crows' feet lining his
Sunken in blue eyes, as he
Led us through a library.
And I think those old books agreed,
As they tiredly watched me
From their glass prison.

My name
Is something of a
Revelation.
And maybe I'll
Never understand, but
Dance naively,  
Acceptingly.

I have this vision in my head
Of your back turned,
Your arm wrapped around
The one that cradled you.

It was mine.

My lips rested gently on your back,
Just above your tattoo,
Barely visible in the light,
And I felt your labored breathing.
Rhythmic yet
Riddled with pain.

I'm sorry.

I know I'm not her but
I tried.
And I'm not sure but
I hope you fell asleep there,
Dreaming and in comfort,
At least for the time being.

I'm not sure if this is
A sickness of the mind or
Of the body.
Not sure if this cough is
Me spitting regret.
Not if this scar is
Real or imagined-
If I lost my voice or
I can't speak.