depression is often compared to falling down an endless hole.
but
it’s actually more like a hot air balloon,
launched by those who tell you to change.
change your looks, your personality
be yourself, they say
not like that, they say
you let them launch your balloon
believing they’re trying to help you fit in
and you watch them grow smaller
as you slowly rise into the atmosphere
until the oxygen grows as thin
as the strings holding together your sanity
and you panic and scratch at the balloon
trying to poke a hole, thinking only about descent,
and your fingertips begin to bleed
and your wrists are cut on the harsh nylon ropes
and you collect scars because you can’t collect your thoughts
and all you want to do is fall
so you jump
and as you’re falling, you feel good.
you feel free.
but as you plummet towards earth and you can see the ground you begin to regret and spread your arms, desperately flapping but it’s too
late
and you hit the floor with a sickening,
bone shattering
crunch
then you float back up to the sky that ended you
and you see
your family
friends
teachers, everybody who’s ever loved you and maybe even hated you feel the ripples of force as you hit the ground
and they scream and rush to your side
trying to help
trying to do what they tell themselves they would have done
if only they had known, if only you had told them
but you felt silly and invalidated and you didn’t want anybody to see
and you didn’t think they would have saved you
so you kept it in and stayed in your balloon until it was too much
the oxygen was running out
with your will to live
but those who are alive cry
tears falling as quickly as you did from the sky
hitting the ground with splashes nowhere near as loud as the crash
that cut your life short
running their fingers over the scars that you hid
the pain that you endured up there in the atmosphere, hidden among long sleeves and fluffy white clouds and fake smiles
and they wonder why they allowed
you to go up in the balloon in the first place
and they begin to blame
not each other, but themselves
and some launch balloons of their own
telling themselves that they’re just grieving,
just wanting to see what you did in your final moments
but their balloons spiral out of control and
they find themselves falling
just as you did

sitting on the balcony
on a hot summer night
naming the stars
in the fading light

something cuts through the darkness,
black as tar
the distinctive shine
of a shooting star

my eyes trace the path as it crosses the sky,
all my attention it does occupy

i whisper a wish
with my eyes squeezed closed,
when i open them i notice
a secret exposed.

albeit giving off a beautiful glow
it's a cigarette **** that someone let go
it falls to the floor and promptly gets squished
beneath the boot of a stranger;

along with my wish.

My writing once flowed like fresh tears chasing each other down blotchy cheeks, unspeakable sorrow etched in the shadows of smile lines.

Words once arose at my every beckon, like a puppy to its owner.

Once, I could sit down and dream, my adolescent imagination trickling into paper and ink.

Once, these hands breathed life into a keyboard, stories and scenes dripping from my very skin.

Now my visions cling like clammy palms wiped on satin dresses, drops of sweat sticking stubbornly to flesh as ideas do to my fingertips.

What I would give to wield that power once more.

the sky blushed black,
freckled stars dotting her inky cheeks.

i held you like a rope with no slack,
searing my palms as you pulled away and i held on tight

and when i finally let go
i wondered why the love hurt more than the leave

sometimes you fall and it’s exhilarating and new and it feels like you’re falling out of a plane

but sometimes you fall and it’s safe and familiar and it feels like you’re falling into place

You can tell me you don’t deserve me.
That I’m worth so much more
Than an unfulfilled promise of an indefinite tomorrow.

I could live out one thousand tomorrows with you by my side.

You can insist that you’re not worth it,
But the twin moons in your eyes disagree.
I know how you look at me.
I can see a reflection in myself.

If I could paint,
that brush would sweep across the page
Breathing life into canvas
The crinkle of your eyes
The curve of your lips.

But you better believe that painting
Wouldn’t last any longer
than how long it would take me to forget your face.

You can say that I deserve better,
but I guess I’ll wait forever
Or at least as long as it takes you to come to your senses.

i poured my love into his heart
it overflowed
spilling out onto the floor
wasted

his was full of love from another
leaving mine empty

the words died before they could leave my lips
but their corpses dance on my tongue

sometimes i look at the crude mass of jumbled words that spill from my fingers and i weep because i can't write good poetry.

sometimes i read, read, and reread until my eyes bleed and i finally concede that i cant write good poetry.

sometimes i want to scream and shriek since i sacrifice so much simply to sow words on paper like seeds in a field, yet i can't write,

good

poetry.

sometimes i give up.


but i've always been told that the best authors hide the most suffering, and I look back at my poetry and smile.

because if i can't write good poetry

at least it means i'm doing alright.

dancing circles around thoughts too raw to approach without the shield of a metaphor,

as if comparing pain to the tide or the birth and death of stars will somehow soothe the sting.

this is a poem of who i am
the big picture stellar grand scheme of things

cobwebs cling to abandoned ideas
the constant unending stream of things

incessant foot-tapping, under-eye bags
stress tearing frayed holes in the seam of things

pinched fat between fingers, bared teeth of the scale
the lowered self-esteem of things

growing up being told that one day i'd be great
the glaring spotlight beam of things

a starry-eyed girl with a life to live:
when i close my eyes i dream of things.

The air clings to my skin, as if I could reach up
and wring it out like a wet towel.

The steady drone of mosquitos, flashes of flitting bodies in my periphery
remind me of my negligence,
Because I can't really blame them
for being attracted to standing water.

They're only trying to reproduce, to give their offspring a chance at experiencing the world.
A place where their eggs won't be washed away downstream
We regard them as vermin, but really, we all burn down to the same things.
A gnawing hunger for survival, a bit of charred carbon.
Maybe stardust, if you believe in that.
A condensation of refracted nebulae.

After all, the infestation is your own fault.
When your water has nowhere to drain, can you fault it for stagnating?
When a mother's wings tire, can you fault her for coming to rest?
Why let the water still if you don't welcome mosquitos?

I almost toe the line of sympathy before snuffing it out with one swift motion,
Ending the thought in a spatter of old blood,
A torn wing smeared across the back of my calf.

“it is often,” he said, “that the poets speak of war-soaked glory and the sickening scent of blood and metal, that the only stories worth being told are ones of immense courage and the crimson victory of causing the death of another. seldom do you hear magnificent tales of the gardener, hands callused from wielding not a sword but the handle of a shovel, exhausted from the humble act of creating life rather than taking it. and that, i think, is a great shame.”

lets pour one out for the kids
who never quite grew into the
“mature for your age”’s and
“pleasure to have in class”’s,

glowing futures hanging from
bony frames like a shirt
a few sizes too big

the kids with molten
gold praise spilling from their skin,
beautiful and
searingly painful,
how icarus must have felt when
the wax ran in rivulets down his back
and the sea opened up to swallow him whole.

the world isn’t so kind to these cookie dough kids
whose edges dont quite fill
out the cutters designed for them
who have no one to blame but themselves
and no one to turn to either.

where do you go when you’re suffocated by
the shadow of places you could’ve gone?