read this slowly
in the intent to feel as though
your big toe stands on top of the highest peak
and attempt to spin
sweeping the air
and you are allowed to smile as wide as the sky above
and you may grasp the blades that make your shoulders
feeling safe,
you might feel alone.

Some days he wore his teacher's mask,
It was his little trick
To disguise himself from students
When feeling rather sick.

He put it on and just like that
He wore the biggest smile -
He laughed and joked and taught them well,
At least for a little while.

The problem with the teacher's mask
Was that it wouldn't go.
He needed it when feeling down
And that was always so.

He wore it when he'd woken up
On the wrong side of the bed.
He wore it when he wasn't feeling
Quite right in the head.

He wore it when he fell in love
And broke his feeble heart.
He wore it when his friend had died
And his life was torn apart.

He wore it for so very long
He soon forgot his face.
He soon forgot his misery.
He kept it in its place.

He kept it for so very long.
It was a masquerade
So perfect that nobody could
Have seen through the charade.

And then that fateful day arrived:
He wrote that, "If they ask,
When rope is found around my neck,
I wore my teacher's mask."

I've been told that a catapiller wrapped snuggly in it's cacoon like the bed-time burrito of my youth feels very simular to the feeling i give when i hug. I've been told that i squeez just right, with the warmth of a summer night. I've been told I hug like a lover seeing her soldier for the first time in years. The few people i hug ask me how i hug so well.
I don't.
I hug with the pain of yesterday.
I hug with the scars on my wrists and the blood on my legs.
I hug with the overdoses, the addictions, the emptyness, the abondonment.
When i hug, i send a message.

when it comes to showing you
how much you mean to me
i am hardly transcendent
but i can promise you
that it's oodles more than you think
i don't always show
gratitude
for the things you do for me
but i always appreciate them
a lot of people use the cliche
"I couldn't imagine my life without you"
but don't mean it the way i do
because really
i can't imagine my life without you
fifteen years of friendship
from kindergarten till college
i can't imagine getting so easily annoyed at anyone else
over something stupid and small
but never going too long
without making peace
i can't imagine going through life
with anybody other than you
nobody else is as synchronized with me
yet also the total opposite of me
nobody else shares life's many frustrations
and joys
as much as i have with you
Proverbs 18:24 says
"One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
so thank you
for being that friend
for keeping me together
so i don't come to ruin
for becoming part of my family
and welcoming me into yours
i can't imagine my life without you.

My gender
My ****** orientation
My disability
My problems
My colour of skin
My size
My voice
My place of origin
My clothes
My religion
My past
My mistakes
My label
Shouldn't be the determination of how you treat me

Having Depression is like finding out that mermaids are real
It doesn’t make sense to you until you’re getting dragged to the bottom of the ocean
And then you think
Oh
That’s what this is
And I’m drowning now,
That’s just……… great
And eventually, with your last vestiges of breath left
You float back to the surface
And you’re fine.
And that’s it.
Mermaids stop existing again.
Because you never actually saw what grabbed you
You only felt the claws around your leg
The cold, clammy hands tugging
With a force that you could never fight against
But you never saw her
So it was all a dream
Right?
And it happens again and again
You are drowning again and again
Until the water begins to feel like home
And the only thing reminding you that you are alive
Is the burning in your lungs
And when everything you had balanced so very carefully starts falling
Off the shelves of your life
When your “mild” depression starts deciding it wants to be more
When being alone makes you feel dead inside
And when losing your cool for one ******* second makes you contemplate your own demise
When do you admit to yourself that you are slipping
You are sinking and just because you can slow your descent
Does not mean that you’re not still drowning
And at the end of the day just because it took you longer to get there this time
Doesn’t mean you aren’t still lying on the ocean floor
Devoid of light and sound
And if you had just climbed onto that now distant boat and sailed away
You’d be fine.
But climbing was too hard
And sinking is so much easier
And you’re scared that if you reach out
Your hands will feel clammy and cold
As they wrap around your friends throats
And drag them down with you
And you would rather rot at the bottom of an endless sea
Than let that happen
So you lie in darkness and wait
For a sound
The singular resounding sound
Of failure
And you slowly float back to the surface
Take a deep breath
And you’re fine.
Because mermaids aren’t real
It’s all in your head

Sometimes you meet a once
in a life time person,
and your paths will only
cross once,
like an eclipse.
But it will be the most
beautiful moment of your
life.
And the whole world will stop
and look in awe,
like the moon crossing
over the sun for just a quick moment.

Let me live as I see fit as long as I do not deprive you of what you believe. Care about what happens to me, even if we do not always agree. Remember that we are all humans and children of humanity. Even if we live separate lives, at let us live in peace. Do not oppress me and I will not learn to hate you. Do not impose what you believe on me and I will try not to preach to you. Perhaps if we can do these things, then we can begin to see, that we are not different after then maybe you can abide with me.