Don't worry.

I'm here to tell you what you need to hear.
And it's not what you thought you would hear,
And it might not be what you deserve to hear.

Don't worry, it's me.
You don't know me well, but
You should know that I am kind.
I am gentle, and I think about you in that fashion.
My thoughts are not barbed wire,
Nor clear sky.

When I think of you, I think this:

You are foolish.
But so was I,
For years
For the same reasons as you.

And nothing can judge you
But the years,
And the years are nothing if not judgment's mirror.

Lonely years.
I would write poems of hate.
I tattooed my life onto the skin of so many notebooks.
Letters only exist on paper--
How badly I wished my depressing poems would be emblazoned proudly on my soul for all to read.
How cold I felt when I realized nobody wanted to get close enough to see them.

The only tattoos my mind bore
Were freezing outlines of emotions
None of which could burn hot enough to melt the ice they were etched into.

Then something magical:
Neurons. Synapses.
I realized that my mind is not a metaphor.
My mind is not a tangled mess of hyperboles and adjectives.

My mind is not poetry, and life is not scripted.
Nobody's brain is made of prose,
Much as some would like to believe.
Depression is not more noble because it is written well.
And if you have written it, believe me when I say that the way it flows when it is read aloud makes no difference either.

Do you understand?
Here it is, simply:
Step back if you find yourself a step too far into the world of the over dramatized.
Burn your depressed poetry.
It serves no purpose but to remind you of the state you are in.
It dwells in your long-gone years without thought of any future unless that future is your past relived until your future's end.

Poetry is not a coping method.
Poetry is an excuse to linger,
And "coping" is a very poetic way to euphemise that fact.
I have found this out the wrong way.
Poetry is as addictive as alcohol, as drugs, as depression.
They all go together well.
And they don't like to let go once they've started to hold hands.

What I'm saying isn't "stop writing."
What I'm saying is that if poetry is an excuse to linger, you have a choice.
What i'm saying is I hope you choose to linger on joy before you dwell in sorrow.
Because the longer you stay somewhere,
The more it feels like home.


Try to grasp the idea of just stopping,
Letting every idea go
And leaving.
And not coming back for a long time.
And doing it right now.

Realize:
1. The longer you stay sealed inside your mind, the longer you'll have to live with only words as company.
2. Words make terrible company when they're written in sadness.
3. The stars don't give a **** about words anyway.

Be like the stars.

Be with your friends. Make yourself laugh. It'll be hard at first. Then it will be easier. Then other people will be able to make you laugh too.



And one last thing to you specifically,
To you, the person reading this,
The person wondering silently,
The person I've been writing to this whole time--

Realize:
I don't know you.
But I love you.

This is not a joke or a ploy.

I love you.

Somewhere out there, there is somebody that loves you, and it is me and I am not afraid of it.
Find me,
And I will love you openly.
Because if you have the strength to find someone you don't know, you have the strength to find yourself too.
And then you won't need a stranger's love anyway.