I cannot fully explain to you
How perplexing it is
To be a 22 year old adult
But to still have the fear
Usually reserved for a young child
The fear of the dark
And not in a way that one is afraid of death
Or lions or tigers or bears
Oh my, my fear is much more irrational
You see I find I have bravery in real things
I’ve rock climbed mountains
Ridden roller coaters
Held a poisonous snake by the tale
You get why that’s braver right?
But what makes the hair on the back of my neck stand
What makes my skin pucker into tiny little bumps
Are monsters born of my own imagination
You see my imagination is wicked
And I use that word both ways
In the slang sense that it is awesome and powerful
And in the literal sense that is it evil
That when I imagine a monster
I give it ten hands with 20 fingers each ending with teeth
And eyes so black they sink into the monsters head
Making them look like empty sockets
So deep, they touch his brain
I am forever afraid
I’ll be honest with you
I sleep with all the lights on
And my closet doors wide open
So I could see exactly what is going on in there
I years ago threw out my bed skirt
Convinced they cloaked crooked
Teeth crawling critters capable of decapitation
And were all considerable stronger than myself
As you can imagine I have a lot of nightlights
Mobile ones I use to walk to the bathroom with in the middle of the night
I have to buy so many batteries
The clerk at Walmart can only reasonably assume
I have deviant private life
Because grown *** adults shouldn’t be that scared of the dark
Because at some point during or after childhood
I won’t assume it happens at the same time for everybody
Your imagination takes a backseat to logic
And you understand that monsters aren’t real
But death is and maybe that’s a better fear to have
That didn’t happen with me though and I think most artists
If they were to be completely honest with you would tell you
It didn’t happen to them either they missed a step
In the development milestone department
Though I think they would tell you too like I’m about to tell you now
The fear is worth it there hasn’t been a single monster
I’ve imagined that hasn’t had an equal
Beautiful thought and I can see them better with all the lights on.

Sometimes I think
That I eat grapes too much.
I eat them so much,
And so many that
Some fall into the fissures
Of my mind.
They burry themselves there
And there I let
Them sit.
For days,
months,
For years.
until they ferment,
Until they make me drunk
So mind drunk I think of you.
Of you and your
Intoxicating voice
One I that I can’t make out
Completely  until
I eat more grapes that
Fill my mind so full
Some slip down into my throat
And mute my voice
So that yours is the only
One I can speak in
And you always talk of making more
Wine.

Hundreds of thousands of years from now
I hope they’ll find my bones
Cradled in the womb of this earth
And the archeologists- as careful as midwives
Would scoop me up, brush me off
And deliver me from the dust
Then when they softly blow off the rest of the soil from my skeleton
Ever so softly for a better look at what I used to be
They’ll see my sandy frame and they’ll **** their heads to the side
In wonder when they notice two sets of bones
Yours gingerly entangled with mine
And as they pick up the pieces of us
That used to be we
They can’t tell them apart, which parts were mine
And which parts you lent to me.

I care, too much, about people who always care too little
I accept more than I can take and I’m running out of fuel
They say your body is a temple, but all I seem to do is dismantle myself and give away the pieces.
I have ripped my own soul apart in attempts to mend the souls of others
I am broken, and I only have myself to blame.
I wanted to love everybody
I wanted everybody to love themselves
And I never stopped to wonder if I fully loved myself.

I was once asked to spell the word Depression
Now that was an interesting question to me because lets face it
Who does not know how to spell depression
It is three syllables
It is ten letters
It is just once word
Or at least that was the answer he was looking for.

I was once asked to spell the word Depression
I thought for a second and said
"Which way would you like me to spell it"
The teacher paused and looked at me quizzically
"What kind of question is that"
He chuckled

Like he thought I was dimwitted he repeated himself
"I would like you to spell the word Depression it is rather simple"

And now this is where I got to chuckle and say
"Sir, I believe what you are asking is a question I cannot answer, because to me Depression is not a three syllable, 10 letter word. Depression is when my sister comes home to a dead father, and Depression is when my best friend get diagnosed with Cancer. You see to me the Depression you are asking me to spell is the same Depression That gets you laughed out of a hospital. The same Depression that gets you a handful of 'cheer up's' and 'Get over it's.' and maybe even some 'Oh just be happy's' But last I checked when someone has Cancer, we do not tell them to "Just get better" or when someone is sitting in the ER with a cracked skull, we do not tell them to 'Just give it time, you're fine.'"

The boy sitting in front of you could not "just give it time"
When his mother died in his arms
And the girl that you pass through the halls could not "just be happy"
After she had true love ruined for her when some man did not Understand the word "No"
And your dad who calls every sunday cannot "cheer up" because the love of his life has died and his own son does not care to come see him on his birthday

So Sir when you ask me to spell Depression I ask which way because
I spell Depression D-E-A-T-H
and I spell Depression A-L-O-N-E
and I spell Depression S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S

So Sir I spell Depression S-U-F-F-E-R-I-N-G
And I define it as misunderstood for something in ones control/

So do not tell me it is simple to spell and do not tell me I am stupid when I ask in which way you are asking because to me
Depression isn't a simple
Three syllable
Ten letter word
That you use to define those who you do not care to know

Sometimes, I dream about the ocean

How the currents pull me under and I’m left gasping for air

Only to ingest the salt water poison that is my love.

I reach the ocean floor.

There’s a gap, a crack that leads downwards

A never-ending whirlpool swoops me in, and there is no escape

You see, I am convinced, that this dream started when I was drowning in my tears

Fighting, like the only way to keep you is to reach the surface,

Sinking, my love knows no depths, and I keep spiraling down

Always loving people who will never love me back

Probably, because I am so broken, and ****** up, that I was never supposed to reach these depths to begin with

I was supposed to drown, but I fell in love instead.

My type is the person who will hurt me

Who has never known love like I have

Who can never fight for me because they’ll only end up drowning themselves

I will never be the first person to leave, I never learned how.

I forgive too easily; the salt has scraped away my ability to differentiate between honest mistakes and abuse.

I’d like to say that I love unconditionally, but the truth is I love recklessly

But I will never apologize, and because I’m always the one getting my heart broken, it means I never have to.

I may be the one to always love more, but it has allowed me to see the depths of something, so beautiful, something so magical it pulls me under.

You may think I’m drowning, but salt water is an acquired taste.

Match my passion,
Love just as hard as I have loved,
Be my fire as I set my own heart ablaze.
I don't want love calm and steady like water,
The love that drowns and tames my flames.
I want uncontrolled chaos,
Love so hot that our hearts tint the world red,
I want a wild fire.

Do we truly listen
Or do we pretend and move on to what we have to say
We say 'Yes, hmm, but, I...'
And we go on
Speak of ourselves
And move on
And once again pretend to acknowledge the words of another
Does anyone ever truly listen?
Does anyone actually care about what I have to say?
Perhaps that's why we write poetry
We've lost the connection...
Or we are so struck by that one moment
Where another truly acknowledges what we had to say
So we write it
About that mere simple moment
Where they actually cared
Perhaps we write so someone will hear our thoughts
Someone will care to listen
Not put up a facade
With a fake smile and nod
But someone
Who actually listens
To this poet's heart.

I was heartbroken in San Francisco
But it wasn’t San Francisco’s fault
I had been abandoned
And I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say,
left for dead

Isn’t that how you always feel?
When someone you love abandons you?
Like they wouldn’t care if you died
It’s not their business to care anymore
That’s the beauty in leaving
And the travesty

So I walked up the winding hills
And I took in the beautiful Bay Area
And I stared out at Alcatraz
And I walked along the Golden Gate Bridge
And when I asked my best friend,
How many people do you think have jumped off this bridge?
She said, let’s go home

We took a ferry to Sausalito one day
Where it was just as beautiful
We ordered tacos and margaritas
I couldn’t eat the tacos
I couldn’t eat anything
I was on the heartbreak diet

I tried to mask it,
Lord knows I failed
But I tried

I went to every gay bar I could find
I covered my face in makeup trying to mask the misery
I blasted the happiest song I could think of,
Which was Love Shack, by the B52s
I met a preschool teacher,
She offered me ******* in the bathroom of some bar
I don’t do drugs, but sometimes
You have nothing to lose

When I leave California, I told myself,
I will leave heartbreak behind
I will leave my heart in San Francisco, if you will
But that didn’t work out too well

Because when I got home, it was everywhere
It was in the walls, it was the smell of my own sheets
It was his leftover cigarette butts on my balcony
It was the flannels he bought me
Because I was always shivering at night
And his lighters in my coat pocket
Even the slight slant of my apartment’s floor
That he would always complain about
It wasn’t San Francisco, it was anywhere