Mist lingers on my lips,
All the words I meant to say
Pent up under the deep rot of rage
My body quivers,
Mind shivers
With incoherent messages
Trying to comprehend
But left only guessing
At this game of life

Come on now,
Sitting stiffly in the car
Come on now brain,
You mustn't be mad
Force force force yourself to be glad
Go swallow the pill of austere reality
It's cold, it's bleak, and it's ******* with my mentality

Because I like magical notions
I dream too often of the ocean
I think of all the places I'll never be
I dream about my destiny
I am weak
Yet I am strong
I am as haywire as a jazz song
My sould sinks deep
My spirit shoots up higher

Mist lingers on my lips
My fingertips
Are as cold as ice
My eyes are averted,
How could I ever look what I want
In the eye
And ask for it?

Clear icicles hung outside my bedroom window
Outside the world was frozen
Blanketed in a thick layer of snow
Sparkling winds carrying snowflakes on it's wings blew in
From the cracks of the window frame
I close my eyes and connect to a vestigial child-like whimsy
A smile breaks out on my face that I can't contain
The winds lift my spirits
And rejuvenate my hollow heart
In this moment I can feel it
My world falling a part
And even though I can see it
I welcome this new start
I am ready to surrender this life of empty striving,
To have my hands free
For all the possibility awaiting me.

Many a psychiatrist
Sitting in their stiff leather chair,
Has tried to tell me
What is wrong in my head
They review tests I've taken
With scales
Asking me how much I feel something-
One through three?
They dole out myriad pills,
That cause further distress
I try to keep my mind a placid place,
But these pills and these labels keep me in constant chaos
All the different labels plastered around me:
Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar, OCD, PTSD...
Doctor, won't you tell me,
Which one is it exactly?
I've gone to all these doctors,
And they all tell me something different
I'm starting to doubt their veracity
I can no longer be discontent, I can no longer be sad, I can no longer be stressed, I can no longer obsess occasionally about an arbitrary mistake, I can no longer be super elated without reason, I can no longer recount a haunting experience...
Without being mental in some way
And having a pill pushed on me by some "well meaning" doctor
Instead of taking the time to actually stop for a moment, open their ears, and get in touch with the very real experience of offering to help carry a burden,
With a little something called empathy.

I see it
In the eyes of the passerby
They are scared
Unaware of the wounds
That control them
I see my shared humanity in their eyes,
Their hunanity like an infant crouched in a ball,
Terrified, shaking,
Hiding in a corner
We seek relief
From this massive worldwide grief
Digging for but not finding empathy
Hiding away all our misery
Because we believe
Our sadness is too big
We wouldn't want it to encroach on other people's happiness
But if we just took a moment to peek beyond the veil
We'd discover a common thread of travail
That strings us all together
So instead of hiding or minimizing our stories
Let's roar our stories out loud,
Unleashing the tamed and timid circus lion of our hearts
So it can progress back to it's original fiery state
Of passion, courage and integrity.