I battle depression like the sun disappears every evening
I'm no different from the norm
I hang with friends, cut time with homework
Sleep, eat, and act normally enough for none to question
Except inside where the sun won't shine

Depression tangles with me in spurts and spouts
Some days it's like a murky mouse in my brain
scratching silently for a way out
like ticking of a clock, barely heard at all

Other days I'm an unsuspecting deer
munching contently on today's grass
stalked by a tiger shaded in charcoal, fangs ready
to pounce and sink his teeth into my life

Sometimes depression is Goliath
And I'm David with a wet noodle
Yet the will to win lackluster
His punches drive my breath away like steam leaving a train

Look in the mirror and repeat
Depression won't win
Depression won't.... win
Depression... won't... win...

but sometimes I just want to
go with the flow
open up the floodgates within my soul
let it sweep me up in the river to somewhere better

where I don't have to worry about my social standing
where a D on a test won't make me question if I am worth it
where I can live without fear of strange doctors and pills
where being me is good enough

And I'm no theater actor asking for the spotlight
depression takes that away
because how can you know sunshine
when all it does is rain?

Cotton Ball Clouds
Coursing through the sky like fish in a stream
Springtime fields of poppy
swaying to the earth's omnipresent music

Dad and daughter laughing and playing
he lifts her up so she can fly
as they enjoy their picnic of fun

Brothers flying flags of azure and gold
passing old stories and a glinting flask
teasing and reminiscing

the grizzled fisherman wading in the river
rubbing his lucky blue hat
thoughts of cooking fish with his wife on his mind

lovers embraced in a circlet of poppy
eyes closed imagining, planning out the
future with a house, a baby

MIGs tear across the sky
decimating the clouds
erupting the land below in fire

Soldiers stomping on poppies
Bullets screaming
From the mouths of their trigger happy fingers

Poppy petals pooling in blood
The dad clutching the still hand of his little girl

Knives rising and falling, cutting up lives
The cut free kites flying towards the heavens

Blood is thicker than water
As it flows with a bobbing blue hat

Fists locked in combat
like the frayed ends of the clasped lover's hands

A mother making dinner for her
Husband and daughter to come cheerfully home to
Click

A mother and father kitting and reading the newspaper
waiting for their boys to barge through the front doors
Click

A recently widowed wife watching the news
realizing her husband was fishing in the area of the battle
Click

A love never fulfilled
destroyed by the fires of war
Click

I no longer want
to be in a world that chooses war over love
Click

her eyes awakened, revealing a veridian dawn I awoke for.

Golden locket grasped above, the red pouring from his chest.