Your mind is an abyss sated with emptiness,spore of an ink-jet,
the heart is erupting with repugnant repulsiveness.
Your conscience ravage by your impulsive act.
You indulge in savagery shackled by misery creativity is a mystery .

You diverged from an honest life and now you're perjuring in art you dark-prowlers.
Converged with parasites marauding, Proud-Writers.

Cursed with uncertainty you're embracing lies, in the realm of thieves there's a decaying crown.

[Disclaimer: this is quite long, but bear with me]

Depression is a shape-shifting, ever-present monster. It is a monster that many battle; some slay the beast, others are swallowed whole, sacrificing life and limb to its gaping jaws, but most are stuck in an eternal stalemate, neither winning nor losing.

It takes a different form for everyone. Mine was a deep black bottomless lake that I was trapped in, the dark waves lapping at my neck, threatening to submerge me. It was a dense grey fog, obscuring all of my senses and causing me to heave and choke, unable to catch my breath. It was a python as thick as a tree, squeezing the life out of me, tightening with every move I made. It was a cancer in every one of my cells; a dull ache that couldn't be numbed. It was every one of my worst fears realized, ready to pounce as soon as I woke every morning. It was a constant IV drip paralysing every muscle that I couldn't rip out of my arm.

But despite all the imagery, it was not poetic. It was not lyrical. It wasn't a heroic effort to maintain a grip on reality and sanity; it wasn't a single tear falling onto a love letter. It wasn't how it’s been artfully depicted in movies and songs. There was no plot twist, no knight on a white horse, no epiphany followed by an orchestral swell and rolling credits. It wasn't poetic – it was ***** and lonely and terrifying.

It was dealing with the crippling knowledge that I was absolutely worthless, that if I was to fall off the edge of the earth, it really would not matter; that though people would be sad for a little while if I died, I would eventually be forgotten because in light of Eternity, my existence was truly meaningless. It was night after night of restless, soul consuming insomnia paradoxically paired with bone-deep exhaustion. It was struggling to get out of bed the next morning because the monster was sitting on my chest, weighing me down and grinning evilly in my face. It was giving up – on friends, family, school-work, because I was wearing these blinders that forced me to only see myself and my unworthiness. It was second-guessing my every move, terrified that I would do or say the wrong thing, and people wouldn't like me any more. It was withdrawing into the prison in the depths of my mind, trying to peek out the bleary windows of my eyes but only seeing the monster, pacing and drooling and growling at me.

I contemplated suicide countless times but only attempted it once. It wasn't from a sense of self-loathing or unworthiness, it was because I couldn't bear the ache inside of me, I couldn't bear looking in the mirror every morning, I couldn't bear going out and having to spend time with happy people. I couldn't bear feeling like I didn't matter, that I was only a feeble shadow floating throughout my day. Sometimes I would feel sick, physically sick with the anxiety of having to interact with people, and knowing that I would have to pretend to be okay. And it was hiding, choking, suffocating, pressing down the gaping raw hole inside of me – because, for me, the worst thing about depression is not being depressed – it’s the fear that someone will find out. I was suffering, but there was no way any one could know, I could not would not would never ever let anyone know that I was drowning in a black lake and there was no one to save me. It was no one's burden to bear but my own. My suicidal thoughts weren't about the morbidity of death, they were about the freedom and release from my self-inflicted suffering. Because depression is self-inflicted, whether we like to admit it or not. It is a battle of our soul against our mind.

There were people who would occasionally notice I was "feeling down", or "under the weather" and would ask me if I was okay. And I would always say Yes, though inside my prison I would be screaming and rattling the bars of my cage, yelling No, Help Me, Please. And once in a while I would be given a little note, a syringe of words, Scripture to inject in my veins and chase away the numbness. Still others would tell me “it’s all in your head”, and that was when I wanted to scream YES IT IS BUT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.  People would try to fix me, but I didn't need fixing. (This isn't something you can fix; I was not broken)

I needed someone to lie with me in bed and hold me until I could breathe. I needed someone to hold my hand and never ever let go of me. I needed someone to sit silently with me in the dark, just so I could know I wasn't alone. I needed someone to trust me to be able to fight this monster.
I fight, day in and day out, against the black waters ******* me down. I accept that depression is something that isn't going away right now, and might not ever go away. But I've also come to realize that though this monster may be bigger and stronger and even smarter than me, I am not helpless.

"Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In the pure light that filled our firmament
Of supreme silence and unbarred extent,
Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord,
One resurrection, one recurrent chord,
One incarnation, one descending dove,
All these being one, and that one being Love!

You sent your spirit into tunes; my soul
Yearned in a thousand melodies to enscroll
Its happiness: I left no flower unplucked
That might have graced your garland. I induct
Tragedy, comedy, farce, fable, song,
Each longing a little, each a little long,
But each aspiring only to express
Your excellence and my unworthiness ---
Nay! but my worthiness, since I was sense
And spirit too of that same excellence.

So thus we solved the earth's revolving riddle:
I could write verse, and you could play the fiddle,
While, as for love, the sun went through the signs,
And not a star but told him how love twines
A wreath for every decanate, degree,
Minute and second, linked eternally
In chains of flowers that never fading are,
Each one as sempiternal as a star.

Let me go back to your last birthday. Then
I was already your one man of men
Appointed to complete you, and fulfil
From everlasting the eternal will.
We lay within the flood of crimson light
In my own balcony that August night,
And conjuring the aright and the averse
Created yet another universe.

We worked together; dance and rite and spell
Arousing heaven and constraining hell.
We lived together; every hour of rest
Was honied from your tiger-lily breast.
We --- oh what lingering doubt or fear betrayed
My life to fate! --- we parted. Was I afraid?
I was afraid, afraid to live my love,
Afraid you played the serpent, I the dove,
Afraid of what I know not. I am glad
Of all the shame and wretchedness I had,
Since those six weeks have taught me not to doubt you,
And also that I cannot live without you.

Then I came back to you; black treasons rear
Their heads, blind hates, deaf agonies of fear,
Cruelty, cowardice, falsehood, broken pledges,
The temple soiled with senseless sacrileges,
Sickness and poverty, a thousand evils,
Concerted malice of a million devils; ---
You never swerved; your high-pooped galleon
Went marvellously, majestically on
Full-sailed, while every other braver bark
Drove on the rocks, or foundered in the dark.

Then Easter, and the days of all delight!
God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight,
While above all, true centre of our world,
True source of light, our great love passion-pearled
Gave all its life and splendour to the sea
Above whose tides stood our stability.

Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan,
Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone.
How far below us all its fury rolled!
How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold!
We lived together: all its malice meant
Nothing but freedom of a continent!

It was the forest and the river that knew
The fact that one and one do not make two.
We worked, we walked, we slept, we were at ease,
We cried, we quarrelled; all the rocks and trees
For twenty miles could tell how lovers played,
And we could count a kiss for every glade.
Worry, starvation, illness and distress?
Each moment was a mine of happiness.

Then we grew tired of being country mice,
Came up to Paris, lived our sacrifice
There, giving holy berries to the moon,
July's thanksgiving for the joys of June.

And you are gone away --- and how shall I
Make August sing the raptures of July?
And you are gone away --- what evil star
Makes you so competent and popular?
How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's
Malice --- that you are wanted somewhere else?
I wish you were like me a man forbid,
Banned, outcast, nice society well rid
Of the pair of us --- then who would interfere
With us? --- my darling, you would now be here!

But no! we must fight on, win through, succeed,
Earn the grudged praise that never comes to meed,
Lash dogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit
In the mule-mouths that have such need of it,
Until the world there's so much to forgive in
Becomes a little possible to live in.

God alone knows if battle or surrender
Be the true courage; either has its splendour.
But since we chose the first, God aid the right,
And **** me if I fail you in the fight!
God join again the ways that lie apart,
And bless the love of loyal heart to heart!
God keep us every hour in every thought,
And bring the vessel of our love to port!

These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand,
And you're an exile in a lonely land.
But what were magic if it could not give
My thought enough vitality to live?
Do not then dream this night has been a loss!
All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross;
All night I have offered incense at the shrine;
All night you have been unutterably mine,
Miner in the memory of the first wild hour
When my rough grasp tore the unwilling flower
From your closed garden, mine in every mood,
In every tense, in every attitude,
In every possibility, still mine
While the sun's pomp and pageant, sign to sign,
Stately proceeded, mine not only so
In the glamour of memory and austral glow
Of ardour, but by image of my brow
Stronger than sense, you are even here and now
Miner, utterly mine, my sister and my wife,
Mother of my children, mistress of my life!

O wild swan winging through the morning mist!
The thousand thousand kisses that we kissed,
The infinite device our love devised
If by some chance its truth might be surprised,
Are these all past? Are these to come? Believe me,
There is no parting; they can never leave me.
I have built you up into my heart and brain
So fast that we can never part again.
Why should I sing you these fantastic psalms
When all the time I have you in my arms?
Why? 'tis the murmur of our love that swells
Earth's dithyrambs and ocean's oracles.

But this is dawn; my soul shall make its nest
Where your sighs swing from rapture into rest
Love's thurible, your tiger-lily breast.

Who is the chosen one to complete me,
And to fulfil my everlasting eternal will,
So let her hear my wishes because nights at hand,
No longer do I want to be a prisoner in my lonely land.

She is my forest and river, my sky so blue,
With her one and one do not make two,
My soul it yearns for spirits and a love like you,
For signs and stars and galaxies as my hearts grew.

Since long days, I believe and I'd never doubt you,
Because I know that I cannot live without you,
So give me a chance allow me to confess,
Your perfection, or my unworthiness.

I have not abandoned you Lord
But unworthiness is a desert without mercy
It is how I live my life now
Yet what you planted within me remains healthy

There is room in my heart for learning
Tell me where to begin no matter north or south
What language should I speak
For what is holy is beyond the grasp of my mouth

I have only found within my nature
The drive to inscribe my pleas into the public domain
And into my mind has been revealed
A way to avert my eyes while I confess to you my pain

I never heard a word from you
But what I am feeling is as powerful as love lost
What lingers though is my conscience
And I will rebuild myself no matter the cost

Why art thou staying still my breath,
Who suppose to have long perished?
Why dost thou count me amongst
The living, that ought to have vanished?

To life am I not entitled for many
A reason--am unworthy of being;
Yet with thy strong arm of grace
Hast thou been blessing me, O heaven.

Everything in my body is weary, my bones don't feel like mine anymore, or real anymore, just simple slugs in my limbs begging me to move slowly and slime upon everything.

I'd rather hide in my sweater than face the world today, and I daren't try to hide my yawns and my sullen, sunken face, bare to the world that I am broken and sad today.

I want to be asleep, where I have a chance of waking up and this being gone. But I cannot do that, not yet, I must fight and live to die another day. How somber.

My hair is a frizzy mess and my makeup must be a disaster, I am sure. The lights dance just out of reach, out of touch, out of my way as i wander along the lonely dark path today has for me.

Tomorrow. I want tomorrow, where I can sleep and dream and beg for a life more than my own, to beg for some magic that will magic away these feelings of sorrow and unworthiness. I just want to be better.

At least my sweater keeps my cold heart warm.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.

A Kiss Is Not a Kiss



A kiss is not just a kiss

…A kiss can be the key

That unlocks

Love

Life

And countless of other

Limitless

Possibilities



A kiss is not just a kiss

…A kiss can be the cure

For loneliness

Unworthiness

It can be

Confidence

For the unsure



A kiss is not just a kiss

…A kiss can be

Recognition

That you deserve love

That you deserve life

It gives you

Permission





So until you find someone

That will show you

Love

And

Affection

...Look in the mirror

And blow a kiss

To your own

Beautiful

Deserving

Reflection

If there is anything that will accompany you in all of your travels it is free will. It will continue its inexhaustible journey exceeding the life your parents, your schooling and your vocational pursuits, dominating your every thought and decision. It will control your destiny beyond any external force or suggestion that is placed upon your pillow. It will neither guarantee success nor doom you to failure. But it will place all manner of excuse, blame or alibi at your feet to be crushed by its unyielding demand that the freedom to choose is a man’s game to be played only by those who are willing to accept the consequences of its exercise.

And what of God? Is it the will of man to be presented the option of paradise versus eternal damnation? For who would dream up such a choice? It would seem that it is no choice at all for the former is laden with streets of gold while the latter summons visions of burning flames and the wish to perish only to be laughed at by a being so diabolical that he exclaims, “And you wanted earthly riches so badly that you gave up streets of gold for the right to beg me to finish you off!” And yet the choice exists in the vacuum between mere rumor and fact; fact that cannot be measured but only sensed or felt. And as you are bathed in the witness of those with the spirit burning from within, you find that your mind must choose its path. And though you are free to choose you will find that the choice is not solely a matter of belief but a matter of self-determination for the choices that you must make about God are not a matter of a single affirmation or denial but a daily choice of good versus evil. And you will be confused by the power of evil because it does not reveal itself readily; instead it will tempt you beyond all that which you have ever known. And you will then know the choice is not one of saying yes and then departing the witness stand; it will be a choice that will become who you are as a human. And yet if God does not exist the choice remains in how you interact in your daily walk amongst those who do believe knowing that some will try to make you feel less than holy because of a particular certainty that you do not possess and some will attempt to save you because they believe they are commanded to concern themselves with your salvation.

And what of truth? For it is said that an honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind, yet you will know that truth may also bring pain, punishment, scorn, estrangement or confusion. To tell the truth no matter the consequence is to say that you stand alone in principle or in condemnation for your acts. It is to say you have no friend who will be protected for his actions or spared what you deem to be real. To tell the truth no matter the consequence is to say you will risk all that you have worked for by raising the ire of those with the power to destroy you or to crush the dreams of innocents who are to be told that their beliefs are those of mere fantasy. To tell the truth is to question everything that you encounter including the God who you have decided to accept or reject for what you have learned about him may be second-hand from charlatans or from a book that you barely understand or from an unbeliever full of scorn or from a believer who swears that miracles occur in this very age. To tell the truth is to never accept what it is that cannot be proven even as you are asked to accept that which cannot be proven as eternal truth.

And what of fear? Can you choose not to be afraid? Is it a matter of only being afraid of imminent danger or of being afraid of possibilities or differences in others? Is it a matter of settling in behind walls, either real or imagined, to surround yourself with like-minded fools, separating yourself even further from understanding and compassion towards those who are different than yourself? For any man who resists the ideas of another before they are fully comprehended or who rejects another because they do not believe exactly as you or who rejects another who believes things you never considered because they lived in another land or who rejects another solely because a flag or a book has been branded as the truth without question becomes merely a mark for those who wish to exploit his mind for their own gain.

And what of love? The love of family is forever. It will sustain you, define you, remind you, inspire you… but even though the blood of your past is always present you must find yourself and remember that a legacy can be uplifting or destructive. And as you become a man you will find love in the eyes of a woman. And she will become your life as your family steps to the periphery. And you will think of flowers and birds and meadows covered with dew as passion overtakes your sense of everything except ravishing her with your life and your body…. But what of separation and conflict… what if the mystery of her heart is revealed to be a horror story so deep that you are consumed with the rage of a man who has lost his mind? Can you say yes without the assurance of forever? Will you know in your heart who it is that you entrust with everything that is dear to you? Your goals? Your dreams? Will you know her before it is too late to close the door to your heart?

And what of you? Do you know who you are and what you will die for? What you will stand alone for? What sacrifices you will make? Will you know what life is about and find a reason to live and not to consume? Will you look to the past and anticipate the future to guide your present? Will you understand the forces that guide you or will you trade free will for chance and wait for fate to choose your path? Knowing that destiny is driven by your hand and fate can be driven by neglect or apathy, will you wake up each morning with an eye on what it is that defines you as a man? Will you live to do good or to do evil? Will you understand that each day is the day to begin your life anew? To make the changes that need to be made and to only use the past as a guide to learning and not as an anchor of unworthiness?

You are loved my son and what you are IS my son and I only ask these questions of you because of my love for you. For I cannot live your life and I do not ask you live your life for me. That is for you and I hope you choose wisely. I do love you more than you will ever know.