My heart feels numb,
I’ve lost all motivation for anything I’ve ever done,
or maybe it’s just laziness,
God, I’m irritably bleeding out my gums,
biting down my lips till,
gashes, gashes.
What have I become?

Knuckles bleeding,
but I’m numb,
I didn’t see the cuts increasing,
my fingers might fall off,
along with my mental stability,
which has run off.

I can’t think anymore,
I just don’t care anymore,
gashes, gashes,
my wrists are bleeding,
I didn’t see the self-destruction,
but I’m halfway in my grave now.
What have I become?

A generation filled with hate,
fueled by our elders,
every decision lies in their hands.
The perpetrators of our demise,
is not ourselves.
It’s the world that’s been created for us,
what a surprise.

A generation filled with pain,
depressions an epidemic
that others don’t always understand.
A world created for competition not salvation,
or finding inner peace.

A generation filled with love,
society has taught us to suppress.
Who's the best? Who's the most powerful?
Redefining love to something people can barely express,
swimming in an ocean of fear;
fear of rejection,
fear of failure,
fear of ourselves.

A generation filled with so much,
That was always told:
"it’s not enough".

My fingers are soft as snow,
and my heart is tender like the sea.
If you dissect me you’d see,
I am weak.

You’d try to,
bleed me out dry,
and try to remake me,
recreate me.

Heal me head to toe,
pulling glass shards out of my soul.
Restitch me piece by piece,
glue the parts back into me.

Then maybe you’d believe me when I say,
“It’s so hard to pull myself together when I fall apart.”

My mother never smiles,
but her soul is a garden filled with joy.
Her eyes shine like a full moon,
glistening at all the darkness in the world.

She yearned to be free,
her soul tangled in the roots of oppression,
while her eyes were haunted by images of discrimination.

As a child I wondered why?
Why does my mother never smile?
She’s so beautiful like the stars in the sky.
Even roses are jealous of the redness blushing beneath her eyes.

I think I even yelled,
“Mom, why are you so unhappy?”
But I was just a child,
I didn’t see the love that filled her bubbly brown eyes.

My corrupted character debilitated her spirit,
believing she was,
    ungrateful,
    unhappy,
    and cold,
as a tundra and I was a palm tree,
but really we were both tulips,
and she was just teaching me how to bloom.

She’s a hero who never received her praise.
Depicting her sorrows through colors on a canvas,
meditating herself to solace.
She knew how to leave this world behind,
for the sake of her own mind.

As I aged,
I suffered,
I spiraled into multiple dark holes,
    I blamed,
    I begged,
    I screamed,
with silence taped across my mouth,
“Why am I so unhappy?”
But unlike my mother I always smiled,
and it was always a lie.

This taught me the limits of a smile,
and why my mother didn’t need to smile,
because a smile is often just a lie,
she expressed her happiness on the inside.

I fell into a pit swimming with fear,
battled demons I thought were my friends.
I’d assumed sadness was a punishment,
but it became my reward.

My mother taught me I didn’t need to smile,
the sadness helped illuminate the good in my life,
and it was okay not to always be fine.

My mother exposed me to my soul,
how tender it is and how harsh I am.
Depicting the reality of what life is,
since I only saw it as a sin.

You can’t run from depression,
that’s why you feel like this again,
It’s a never ending labyrinth,
you’ll never find your way out,
a circle you’ll try to escape,
captious day after day,

It’s hopeless to try and flee from the pain,
the torment continues,
an incessant nuisance of despair,
you’ll wish away with every birthday cake,

Prickling needles that you can’t seem to numb away,
you’ll fixate yourself on;
flowers, the ocean, the color purple,
“I’m happy,” you’ll say as you braid your hair,
wiping away memories that trigger you every year,

Depression causes vexation,
you’ll pray to a God you don’t believe in,
wanting to escape,
but it returns some days,
a pattern you’ll try your whole life to vanquish away.

I didn’t even blink when everything around me started drowning,
maybe because I was already knee deep.

You can’t prevent the inevitable.
They say you can fight it,
but that’s a myth.

You’ll survive it,
but only once you’ve given up.

Haven’t you heard, “if the current takes you out to sea, don’t fight it, just let yourself be.”
Sometimes life’s that current,
and the only thing to do is let yourself be.

Stop punching walls that don’t exist.
Yelling at ghosts won’t change the past.
Hurting yourself won’t make anyone love you more than they do.

There’s only so much people can give,
and not every flower will be yours,
and not every heart will be yours.

Don’t break yourself down to make the pieces fit into someone else's puzzle.
I don’t need to remind you how long it takes to rebuild yourself
every time you breakdown.

We’re no ones sacrifice.
We’re no ones weapon.
We’re not here to drown in oceans of our own tears.

People are constantly changing,
hell, I’m changing,
and I can’t stand it,
the earth is moving,
stars are colliding,
love is found and love is lost,
some cry while others die,

and I'm losing everything,
my friends are in the mountains, while I'm drowning in the lake,
my families across the ocean, that I’ve been trying to overtake,
and I still don’t have a place to call my home,

I sip my tea, and smoke one,
I’ll call it a day since no one called,
I’m not the same, and that’s okay,
I'll grow into a better me,
step by step,
one day I’ll learn to just “be”.