the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
By 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.

the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.

but I feel them drowning.
and I can't save them.

they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.

but the price is
terrible.

sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.

Bunnies are sweet
and bunnies are gentle
The more time with them
The less we feel mental.

"I lost her to mental illness."
It just doesn't produce
Quite the same sympathy as
"I lost her to cancer." Or
"I lost her to a car accident."

People look at you strangely
As if you don't understand
What it means to be alive,
That you don't know a person
Is alive and well if they're breathing
And talking and living.
They try to correct you and say
That you're just not in contact
With her anymore,
Not that you've actually lost her.

People think mental illness:
"Can't be that bad, right?"
"At least she's still alive."
"You could still talk to her,
If you wanted."
They think being sad about it,
Being broken hearted over it,
Being depressed because of it,
Is just exaggerated hysterics.

But I lost her to mental illness.
I lost her to mental illness!

It IS that bad!
It means she is gone from me
As much as if she physically died!
I CAN'T talk to her
Even though I do want to!

There is no going back
To the way it used to be.
Every day of the rest of my life
Will be missing a key person
Whom I can never get back.

She abandoned me,
Chose to walk out of my life.

But it was the mental illness
That stole any hope I had
Of seeing her walk back in.
It was the mental illness
That orphaned me.
It was the mental illness
That "killed" my mom.

So please don't trivialize my loss.
Don't depreciate my pain.
It's just as valid and just as real.

I lost her to mental illness.

with fingers of sin i had touched your core, unzipped your jeans like locked church doors and swore i would marry you one day.
they say i shouldn't love you anymore, that poems are only for those you adore—but when you left i was naked on the floor, sold my soul to the convenience store, and
to forget a ****** i kissed a *****
kissed my lips and cried no more

One can never be truly grateful.
It's impossible.
There's too mich to thank.
If your happy to have a computer,
Your gonna have to thank
The laborers in China who constructed it,
Steve Jobs for designing it,
Apple for populating it,
Miners who get the metal for it,
Ship workers who shopped it over to the U. S. to be used,
Store workers who sold it to you,
And so many more and this is for just one object.
So you can't be truly grateful for everything in one short day.
Be grateful everyday,
And maybe just maybe
You'll fit a sliver of everyone
Who deserves to be appreciated.

my friend made a
fort of her bed with
tapestries and lights
and the five of us
converged into a
mass condensed to
a point of peace
and convalescence

time did not exist
under that sheet
with pin ****** of
light laid gently on
top the hours were
not ours we hugged
and shifted and
peeled away the
inner layers of an
almost rotten onion

tears and eyes filled
with a sad knowing
that we murmured
but did not explain
always drawn closer
in there was no point
of critical mass no
crevice small enough
to ignore no words
too true to be withheld

i spent twenty two
hours there growing
one with the mattress
pads and wind chimes
clanging as the heat
hissed gently and found
that silence that we
always said we wanted
just a moment of silence
in which i was able to be

I remember it,
it was a warm Tuesday evening
and we were stumbling to the bus stop
that stood on the side
of the busy town centre street,
she was being herself,
telling me how terrible
I am
and how she hates every inch of me,
then she leaned in to kiss me;
this would happen nearly every day
but that warm Tuesday evening,
something clicked;
I took the anger I had felt for so long
and painted it on her body
with bruises
shades of purple,
yellows and blues;
she left me the next day
for a pretty boy she had met
a few days earlier;
we were never going to work;
she was crazy
and I was crazy for her;
that 'love' did not bring me joy
and hope,
it brought me suicidal thoughts
and hard liquor;
I still remember it,
the day I broke into a million
tiny little pieces;
I still find myself searching
for those pieces
and it kills me every time
I realise I can never get them back;
but I am trying
to re-build myself
with the little pieces
I managed to cling on to
in the shock of the fall