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Step 1: Get out of bed
Step 2: Look in the mirror
Step 3: Practice your smile
Step 4: Eyedrops to hide the red eyes
Step 5: Conceal the dark circles
Step 6: Breathe
The curtains are almost up
Step 7: Lock down the pain
Step 8: Ignore the weight on your chest
Step 9: Silence the screams inside of your mind
Step 10: Choke down the sobs
Step 11: Ignore the stinging in your eyes
Step 12: Swallow past the tightness in your throat
You’ve put on this show a million times
Step 13: Don’t let them see
Times up. Curtains up. Camera rolling
You know how when you’re not ok but you try so hard to pretend you’re ok that it becomes a ritual
 Feb 2020 Yolanda Kassa
Meera
He doesn't burn photographs
He doesn't join therapy sessions
He doesn't smoke too many cigarettes
Nor he drown himself into alcohol
He scratches his wounds daily
And never let them heal
He doesn't try to get rid of the pain
Instead he let it grow on him
He waters the seed of sorrow with his tears
He feeds it with the manure of old memories
He takes it to sleep with him
And nurtures it in himself
Till the moment when every single drop of his blood gets replaced by this pain
Until his fragile heart can bear no more
And his soul starts overflowing with emotions
That's when he dip his pen into this pain
And empty his heart on a piece of paper
He bares his soul for us to feel
He creates poetry that the world would cherish for centuries to come
That's how true poetry comes into existence
Sometimes I think of killing myself
How the end would be so nice
How the darkness would swallow me up
And how the numbness would suffice
My need

For all the voices of the feelings
That constantly keep me reeling
To softly slow to a hush
As my brain starts tur-tur-turning into mush

How wonderful it would be
To have that powerful silence
Not even grasshoppers would bother
To wake me

My cells would stop dividing
My brain would stop the lying
Myself would stop denying
What I truly want

But but but
This is just a reckless fantasy
A way to elude one’s own reality

Because as I sit here on the floor
Tears drip drip dropping
I realize there’s those who care for me more
Cherish me more
Love me more
Than I love my own self

The crickets chirp
I put the pills down
I have cried
So many times,
Hidden and silent.

I have stared
At nothingness,
Felt my heart breaking.

I have waited
For so many calls
From you that never came.

I have believed
Everything that you said
I guess some weren't true.

I have been left
By you waiting for
The things you said you'd do

I broke my heart again,
Because I thought, finally,
I'll stop being used by you
Looks like I'm gonna have to sleep
Hoping I'll feel less sad when I wake up.
 Mar 2018 Yolanda Kassa
Vale Luna
(read forward, then backward, line by line)

I ran.
Not knowing what else to do
There was so much blood on my hands
It was mine
The kitchen knife
Caught in my chest
Guilt
Consumed by
Fear
I was heightened by
Adrenaline
But running on
Wasn’t enough
While trying to stay calm,
Losing control
It was me that would end up
Dead. Because
He was
In front of me
The whole time
It was too late
Trapped
I found myself
Locked in chains
My fate was
Death.
Forward: from the victims perspective.
Backward: from the murderers perspective.

This TOOK ME FOREVER TO WRITE
 Mar 2018 Yolanda Kassa
Skyler M
Write
Simple,
I tell myself,
Write
Poetic,
I force myself,
Write
Beauty,
I convince myself,
Write
Imagery,
I encourage myself,
Write
with purpose,
I plead myself.
 Mar 2018 Yolanda Kassa
Ciel Noir
What other kind              of creature could divide        
        Each different thing             into its different sides                
  With chaos versus             order, dark and light
The stark duality of         wrong and right
We even split the very        world in two
With human versus human,       we and you
But still no matter how much      we divide
Each thing has infinitely many      sides
 Mar 2018 Yolanda Kassa
Tabitha
She
 Mar 2018 Yolanda Kassa
Tabitha
She
You wonder if she knows
If she can tell how deep it goes
This sadness that you carry neath your skin.

You wonder if she sees
The way you fall down to your knees
And how hard it is to get back up again.

You fear she’ll walk away
Leaving nothing in her wake
But the broken, shattered pieces of your soul.

But if you’d look, you’d see
She’s aware of everything
And she’s holding tight, trying to keep you whole.

— The End —