I see you. The real you.
And I think it’s brave and beautiful the way you love despite all the ways life tried to destroy you

Damaged people are dangerous because they know how to survive,
And if you've never been damaged you don't know how it feels to be alive,
See struggle is the sauce that gives success its flavour,
when life kicked you down it was doing you a favour.

Cos it's in your darkest hour, not in prosperity
that you will realise your true ability.
Life dunks you in deep waters not to drown you but to cleanse you.
And that's just the beginning of what it will put you through.
But it's chiselling you down, you won't deflate.
It's not wearing you thin, it's getting you to your fighting weight.
Prosperity makes monsters, adversity makes men.
I believe when you reach the top life will yank you back down again.

You didn't break down, you just had a flat tyre
so get back up and relight that fire.
keep it burning and churning at the pit of your heart
and keep on learning and yearning and never fall apart.

Stare life in the eyes
and say "no matter how many times
my spirit won't break if my drive never dies"
So throw me a burden I won't lose my composure,
It's for this very reason that life gave me shoulders.

Get better not bitter
This weather will wither
I'll turn wounds into wisdom
sadness into spirit
tears to tenacity
I will never quit it

Take a deep breath and concentrate your stare
because a road with no obstacles never took you anywhere.

Forgive
Forget
Forever

I feel the sadness creep back into my bones and I whimper.
All of me crumples to the floor like a fallen autumn leaf,
trapped by the asphalt and the air,
with the impending fate of being trampled on by wandering feet.

I can do nothing but watch
and wait
as every bit of my being succumbs to this plague of past participles.

I long to be saved, to be rescued,
but when your savior is your victim,
       when your hero is the fallen,

it's a lot like trying to write with no ink.

I can always tell when my depression comes creeping back.

The insomnia is first. Not every night, but a night or two a week I find myself exhausted but sleepless. I stare at the wall in the darkness and wait for....something. Something that never comes.

The second is the sensitivity. My nerves start to fray, my temper holds tinder, and tears spring from my eyes at the lightest affair. I seem to suddenly hold my emotions like a three year old that missed his nap.

The third is my music. I envelope myself in it, and usually end up listening to the same song on repeat for days. Until it is no longer a song. Until the beat plays in my bones, the lyrics embed in my skull.

I only know I have fallen once I start writing again. I return to the place that smells like damp air, tastes like chalk, feels like numbing nothingness. This place is where I write; where I find my depression. Or rather, where it finds me.

When I wake in the middle of the morning I see your bare body glowing in what is left of the moonlight.
It takes my breath away and suddenly every inch of my skin is fiending to feel you like an addict fresh to rehab.
It's been a few hours since I last touched you, since I fell asleep in your arms,
and now that we have rolled to opposite ends of the bed I need the high back again.
You on top of the covers, and I underneathe, I envelope you the best I can and trace imaginary circles in your hair.
I run my fingers down the side of your face covered with stubble and plant feather-lite kisses across your skin
as your poison soaks into my veins and my heart quickens.

I lay there for hours on this high, watching you sleep with dialated eyes,
and trying to hold back these words that sit at the pearly gates of my teeth.
It's maddening; trying to keep the brigade of how I feel and what I know and how I hope behind the enameled walls.
They fight the barrier and pull at my tongue in an attempt to spill from my shaking lips and crash into the drum of your ears.

But I fear if you knew, you would run.

So instead
I take another hit of you
I regather my composure
and face the day of sobriety ahead.