When I was seventeen
I did a dangerous thing:

Rung by rung, I rose
into forbidden space,
climbing as an insect
would along a slender
blade of wiregrass.

At the top of the tower
I settled into thin stratus.

I took in my home town,
insignificant and benign:
car headlights sliding
on roads to park below
neon drugstore signs,
yellow house windows
and amber streetlights—
whole neighborhoods
stretched out like fields
lit by electric flowers.

I’m sure I saw the glowing
orange tip of the cigarette
my girlfriend was smoking,
rocking herself away from me
on her metal front porch swing.

While I cowered
there in that aerie,
the air reeked of rain,
smoke, and despair.
I remember my heart,
syncopated and suffering;
how it pulsed beneath
a scaffolding of bones—
a buried, burning flare.

"What do you think heaven looks like?"
"Clouds. Sunshine. Angels."
"But really? You don't think heaven has
desks and post offices and plastic
grocery bags?"
"Probably not."
"Oh."

I was born amidst the city,

I am one with busy highways and graffiti carelessly scrawled across overpasses

I am alive at night,

Lights shine against bare skin;

I’m small against my backdrop

I’m one drop of water amongst a stream of people


I have lived in the country,

Where nobody could be found for miles

Where I was expected to rely on myself and grow into myself

I nurtured myself,

I killed myself,

I wavered and withered with the seasons

But I flourished


I will die by the sea,

Waves may crash against me,

But I will remain upright.

Salt water will heal my wounds

I shall return to nature

I will be washed away; yet eternal

You tied  shoelaces together
and tried to hang yourself
from McMillin’s
basketball
hoop.

The neighbors talked about
it for years over flapjacks
and grits.  

They couldn’t understand why
anyone would attempt
suicide. I knew
the reason;

you were homely
and dull, kind of
foul smelling

too.  You failed
at  death, me
at life.

In theory the moon
is a terrible dancer.

But tonight, waltzing
alone in an open field

I feel her graces
on my shoulder,

her moon rhythms
measuring time
against my neck,

a delicate crater punched
into the small of my back.

She has never
been this close

to me

so I am unashamed
to be dancing with her

like this

for the first time,
a solitary partner

casting shadows
on frosted grass,

spinning over furrows,
long scarf precariously

close to my clomping boots
keeping three-quarter time,

pausing only when she
whispers the word lunatic

in my ear,

a bewitching farm girl
flirting
from her stratosphere
far away.

I was young when I first met her -
a teenager, and getting a hang of it.
I'd like to think I smiled more, back then.

I don't recall much before her -
even the little I remember feels surreal.

I had just experienced the sweetness of a first love -
staying up all night speaking on the phone,
exchanging silly, cute love messages read on the internet.
It was adorable, I tell myself.
Teenage love often is.

Then I met her.
She was quiet, and timid.
We barely saw each other -
but she was always on my mind.

At first, she'd only visit in the evenings.
As we grew closer to each other, she was around more.
She would swoop me away from friends -
she was jealous, and wanted me only to herself.
I was not cognisant of how jealous her love was.

She hated it if I was smiling, or laughing without her.
She hated it when I went to visit places without her.
She would be mad at me, if I did anything without her,
and I would cry myself to sleep.

So, to love her best and to make her happy;
I stopped smiling, or laughing without her.
I stopped going to places without her.
And I cried to sleep, even if she was not mad at me.

When I met her, she never gave me her name.
But I asked, I had to know her name.

Her name is Depression,
and I wish I never met her.

I am dying.
As most are, I am unprepared.
I feel death tingle down my arms
And rob my struggling lungs of air.

I feel it settle over my mind like a haze
Of drowsy, unfocused wooziness.
I am terrified of it, I am scared
I can feel the cold grasp of death.


.


She hands me a bottle that clicks with magic
She tells me it's not much and I believe that.
She hands me a bottle after she checks me over.
I take the bottle and remove myself from where I sat.


.


I remind myself that I am not dying.
I remind myself that I can breath, am breathing.
I remind myself that I am not tingling.
I lie to myself factually: I am not dying.


.


I don't believe her or myself
If I were to believe, would that make me crazy?
If I weren't to believe, would that make me crazy?
If I am cleared headed yet somehow feel hazy?

**** this lazy rhyme in off kilter four four time:
Am I crazy if I feel my lungs fight for air though I have no problem breathing?
What if I feel my body shutting down when I am more than healthy?
Am I crazy if I know it's the end but can't explain or even postulate why?
Am I crazy if I write so someone knows what happened when I die (whilst thinking I am alive I wont die but I am dying which is just the panic speaking but if it's not then I'll be gone  by tomorrow which wont happen. maybe.)?